Phoenix Rising
by Ren421
Summary: Elricest.  Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born.  The Soul Alchemist Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war.  Alphonse Elric.
1. Chapter 1

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 11,865  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **Not mine, too bad. Not mine, so sad.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 1

Ed had wandered around, stunned and dazed for several days, until he finally headed for Resembool. He couldn't believe Al had kissed him! Didn't he understand how wrong that was? They were brothers! It was sick and disgusting and… it scared him. He'd run. This wasn't how it was supposed to turn out! They were supposed to live together in harmony. They were supposed to return to Resembool together, where Ed would marry Winry like he was supposed to, and Al would live with them, because Ed had to have Al with him always, and be an uncle to his children and… FUCK. Why did Al have to fuck everything up with that one horrible, sick, disgusting, amazing kiss? He rejected the sudden electric shock of sensation when Al had touched and kissed and whispered words of passion to him. He couldn't have felt anything of the sort, no, never that; it had to have been fear and shame and violation. Yes, Al had violated his body and his trust. He refused to remember the shamed shock that filled his brother's beautiful face when Ed had told him that he was sick and disgusting and depraved; refused to remember the frightened tears and soft begging for forgiveness when Ed had told him he couldn't be his brother anymore, and walked away from him without another word. No, he simply wouldn't remember any of that, and focus only on how _wrong and sick _Al was. Everything was ruined and it was all Al's fault!

Dully, he walked up the dirt lane to the Rockbell house at last. There was a squeal when Winry opened the door and she hugged him tightly. Then she looked expectantly past him.

"Where is he?" Winry asked in excitement.

Ed was rather nonplussed. After all their passion in Central last year, Winry seemed more eager to see Al than she was to see him. But of course, Al was like a little brother to her. Naturally she would want to see him now that he had his body back. How to explain to her that he'd run away from his brother because Al had touched and kissed him in a way that was not brotherly at all? In a way that felt too good and hot and sweet when it was a nasty terrible sinful thing? But of course it hadn't been good or hot or sweet. How could it have been? Al was sick and deranged, and it was well that Ed had told him. He could only hope that Al would get some help for his mind. Obviously those years as armor had affected him more than anyone realized. Yes, he must remember to send someone to take his little brother to a mind doctor or something. Yes, that's what he would do.

"Umm… He's still in Central." I think. "We decided to… well, spend some time apart. After all, we've lived in each other pockets for years, and…" He broke off. Winry was frowning.

"You left him in Central? But your letter said you just restored him, what, two weeks ago? Is… who's with him? Can we go see him?"

"No!" Ed snapped, feeling aggrieved. "He's fine by himself. He doesn't need anyone to look after him."

Winry watched him with half lidded eyes. "Did you two have a fight?"

"I just don't want to be with him anymore, is that alright? Aren't you at least glad to see me?" He stepped closer and tried to give her a kiss, and was stunned when she stepped back. "What the hell, Winry?"

"Ed…" She said softly. "I thought you understood. I love Al. I always have."

"WTF? What about… In Central, and we…"

"I was lonely. And Al… he didn't want to… be with me, while he was armor. Said it wasn't fair to me. So… you and I… it just happened. But it was always Al I was waiting for, Ed. I thought… I thought you knew. If for one moment I had thought that you would think that you and I would…" She broke off. "Now, where is he?"

"I don't know," he said, his face white. "And in Central, when we… shit! I touched you like that because I thought we would get married when Al finally got his body back. It was what everyone expected. It was what my mother wanted."

"And what about what I wanted? Did you ever stop to think about that? And if you made love to me in Central because it was what you thought everyone wanted, that's even less reason for us to… to… get married. And since when did you care about what everyone expected from you? Fine time for you to decide to suddenly care about that! Now, where is Al? I want to see him. I've been waiting years for this day!"

"I don't know… I left Central, and him, and I… sort of wandered around. I have no clue where he is now." Ed was sullen. Back then, afterward when they lay hot and sweaty in bed, Winry had told him not to read too much into their little liaison, just concentrate on getting their bodies fixed, Ed had assumed she just didn't want him distracted from their quest. It suddenly struck him that he was far more hurt that she'd fucked him because Al wouldn't touch her even in armor, more than it hurt him that she didn't want him like that. After all, Winry… was well, Winry. He'd only even entertained the notion of marrying her, because at least in this one thing he wouldn't let his mother down. In everything else, protecting his little brother, in living the life she would have wanted for him, being the person she'd have wanted him to be… well, he'd made a real hash of that. At least he could have done this for her, even if it was something he would never have entertained on his own behalf.

"You left him in Central, alone?" Winry was shrieking, her face red with anger. "You left him in that… City of sin all alone? In a brand new body? What the hell's the matter with you, Ed? How could you have done that to him? He's so sweet and good and kind… He'll be eaten alive by himself there! I thought you loved him! How could you have done that to him? How could…"

"He kissed me, Winry!" Ed shrieked back, pushed beyond his endurance. "And it wasn't at all brotherly either! He put his tongue in my mouth! Told me he was in love with me, that he'd always wanted me like that! He's my brother! It was wrong! Sinful! I had to get away from him!"

"Since when did sin bother you, Edward?" Suddenly, Aunt Pinako was there, holding her pipe and regarding him with narrowed eyes. "As shocking as it seemed to you, his kissing you, it's not to me. Even when you were both kids, you made sure he never had anyone but you. Lots of the kids here wanted to be your friend, but you pushed them all away. And when they tried to be Al's friend, you pushed them away from him too. And from all I've seen and heard, none of that changed when he was armor. Always moving him from place to place, even when the two of you weren't looking for ways to fix yourselves. You made sure he was welded securely by your side. And now, when he's new to his body and sensations, and thrust suddenly into the hormone ridden body of a teenager, confused and bewildered after half a decade of nothingness… Did you ever stop to think about that, Edward? No, you didn't. So you left him? You just ran out the door and abandoned him? Left him lost, and alone, and confused, betrayed by the one person he loved over anyone else in the world?" Pinako said nothing more, just shook her head and walked back into the house, puffing on her pipe meditatively.

Winry was looking at him with loathing. "How could you, Ed?" She whispered. She too went inside and shut the door, leaving Ed outside. "Grandma, we're going to Central! Al needs us!" Her voice was muffled.

But Ed wasn't really paying attention. He'd even forgotten to show them his automail hand, which he'd altered in the transmutation that retrieved Al's body and fixed his leg and arm. Pinako's words struck him straight to the core. Why hadn't he thought of that? Ed had years to adjust to the hormones of maturity. Al had been thrust into the thick of them without so much as a wet dream to prepare him. Pinako was right. Al had been confused and bewildered. And so had turned to the one he loved, expecting understanding. Instead, he'd been rejected out of hand and abandoned with recrimination and cruel names. Ed shuddered and turned on his heel. In a moment, he was running.

Ed stared at the little house he'd left Al in with dull eyes. A big 'For Rent' sign was posted in the yard. A matronly woman was sweeping the front steps. She looked up and saw him standing there.

"Hello, there, young fellow. Can I help you?" She asked.

"The boy, the one that used to live here…"

She shook her head. "Ah, yes, that poor little boy. So very sad." She continued to shake her head as she swept, her eyes suspiciously bright.

"What… what do you mean?"

"He was such a nice boy, always so kind and sweet. Then one day, he just up and killed himself. The military found him and took the body away." She sniffed. "He was living with another boy, his brother they said. I never met the brother, but this boy, the little Alphonse… Ah, breaks my heart. I only met him a few times. Always brought me a little snack from the garden. Seems his brother left him all alone. Ah, the tears that boy wept. Wouldn't be comforted. Said he deserved to die, for driving his brother away like he did. Can't imagine how someone that sweet and kind could do that. But I never thought…" Tears were running down her cheek. "I didn't think he was really going to do it. I wish…" She wiped her eyes. "He's gone now. I can't help feeling like I… am to blame. He cried so heartbrokenly when his brother left. I tried to comfort him. Then… he was gone. Just like that. I didn't think he would do it. I didn't think…." She couldn't go on. She swallowed, dried her eyes on her apron. "Anyway, what can I do for you… young man? Are you alright?"

Ed was frozen into place. His face was paper white, and it was as if his heart ceased to beat, his lungs to breathe. "You… you said… the military…"

She nodded. "Yes, that new General, the one so famous for defeating that monster we thought was our Fuhrer. He took the boy away. Never thought someone as cold as that man could cry, but when they took that little boy out of the house on that stretcher, all covered up with a sheet, he just cried like a baby. And that soldier with him, that blonde, he was crying too. Both those hardened warriors, crying over that sweet boy. Where… where are you going?"

But Ed was already running again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 11,865  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **Not mine, too bad. Not mine, so sad.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 2

It was late by the time he reached HQ. The admin was deserted. His watch got him in, but since Mustang had gone home for the day, he would have to go to the man's house. Mustang would tell him… what there was to be told. Ed moved numbly, unable to feel anything. A distant part of him thought it was ironic, that this was how Al must have felt for so long. He stopped, and collapsed in the street, weeping hopelessly. Al had been confused by his new body and all the hormones that came with it. He'd turned to his beloved brother in his confusion, and that brother had rejected him, called him sick and disgusting, and abandoned him. And Al… Al had wept in pain and bewilderment, thinking what Ed had said was true. Thinking he deserved to die for loving his brother too much. Al had… killed himself.

Finally, he picked himself up, dried his eyes wearily, and went to find Mustang. Once he had, and learned all there was to know, he would do the only thing he could. Since he couldn't beg Al's forgiveness in this life, he would follow his little brother into death, and beg it there.

He knocked on the great double doors that served as Mustang's front door. It was a faint, hollow sound, rather like his own heart. It took a moment, then the door opened, and a tall thin balding man opened the door.

The butler stared down at the disheveled travel stained young man, and his lips thinned. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah," Ed said with a dull voice. "You can tell General Mustang that the Fullmetal Alchemist is here to see him."

"A moment." The doors closed again.

There was a long silence. Ed, who would normally have fidgeted at the delay, simply stood there, silent and still.

Suddenly the door was flung open, and Ed found himself confronted with an enraged Havoc.

"You little bastard!" The man snarled. "What the hell do you want? Get the fuck out of here."

A white-gloved hand descended on Havoc's shoulder, and the man calmed himself with difficulty. "Jean. Go back inside. See to Al. I will deal with this."

Havoc gave Ed one last venomous glare, and vanished back inside.

"Fullmetal. You're back." Mustang's voice was cool and his face wary. "I'm not so sure it's a good idea for you to see your brother. He's very… fragile right now."

"He's alive?" Ed almost screamed in relief and gratitude. "Al's still alive?"

Mustang looked nonplussed, then his face smoothed out. "I must remember to tell Mrs. Franklin that Alphonse survived," the man said as if to himself.

Ed shoved past him, running into Mustang's palatial home. "Al! Al! Where are you, Al?"

Mustang tried to catch him, but the boy was too agile. He ran into the living room, where he found Havoc leaping up and placing himself before the couch. There was a scrambling behind him, a rusty sob, and suddenly Al leapt out from behind Havoc.

Al was bone thin, his face pale and drawn, his eyes dark and shadowed. Bandages swathed both arms from hand to elbow. He looked at Ed in distress, made a funny little choking noise, and staggered, as fast as he could away from his brother, tears leaking from his eyes. "I'm sorry, Niisan. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, please. I'm so sorry… Oh, Niisan, I'm sorry…" It was a faint, hoarse litany as the younger boy stumbled, sick and disoriented into a corner, overturning a delicate table, the vase there smashing to the ground in a thousand pieces. Al stared at it with hollow eyes, and whispered, "I'm sorry, sir," and then was trying to squeeze himself into the corner of the room, bandaged hands pressed against the wall as he tried to escape, his frantic scrabbling leaving smears of blood on the wall. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." The boy was whimpering in fright and agony.

"Al," Ed whispered, stricken at the cringing wraith his brother had become. "Al."

"Get the fuck out!" Snarled Havoc, trying to take the boy into his arms. But Al struggled, crying almost hysterically, and the bandages were leaking red. "Get the fuck out now! Can't you see you're scaring him?"

Al didn't calm down until Mustang moved smoothly past the other man, and took Al into his arms. Al quieted down, clinging to the man. "I'm sorry, sir," he moaned softly. "I broke your vase, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Mustang stroked Al's hair tenderly, tears in his dark eyes. "Shhh, Alphonse, it's fine. I can buy another. Shhh… Calm down, sweetheart. You're hurting yourself again. Please, take a deep breath."

Ed watched Al's hands gripping the back of Mustang's white shirt with desperation. Bright streaks of blood stained the pristine fabric.

"Is he gone? Is he gone?" Al was whimpering softly. "Please say he's gone. I… I can't face him, after what I've done to him. Is he gone?"

Ed was suddenly jerked out of the living room and into a side hall. He'd missed the look Mustang had given Havoc.

"Are you happy now?" Havoc hissed poisonously. "Aren't you pleased by your handiwork? Why did you come back? Al was getting better. He smiled today. Now he'll try to kill himself again. Why couldn't it have been you?"

If Ed was dismayed by Havoc's hatred, he didn't show it. Indeed, the man couldn't possibly hate Ed more than Ed hated himself. He remembered Al's face, shy and vulnerably hopeful as he kissed his brother, just after his delicious laughter had rung out at something Ed had said to him as they lay in the bed together. That day, Al had been strong and tall and confident. And with a look and a word, Ed had utterly destroyed him.

Havoc shoved Ed out of sight when Mustang came out of the living room, carrying a boy weeping so hopelessly it was as if his heart was breaking; but Ed had already broken it a week before. Then Havoc jerked him to follow the two down the hallway, and wait out there when Mustang carried the boy into a bedroom and shut the door. It seemed an eternity before Mustang came out, having changed his shirt and was wiping blood off his hands.

"He only tore a few stitches. I repaired them, and he's sedated now, but I want you to sit with him, Jean. Keep an eye on him. I'm not going to lose him now."

Havoc nodded and slipped quietly into the bedroom.

"Now you see, Fullmetal," Mustang said coldly. "I told you it wasn't a good idea. But once more, your feelings have to come first, no matter what it might cost your brother. I should have let you think he was really dead. It would have been better for Alphonse if you thought that.

"He… he slit his wrists?" Ed's voice was as ashen as his face. "He tried to kill himself."

"Yes. When we took him from the house, we thought he was dead. I rushed… god how I rushed. I was almost too late. I was afraid he would do something like this. When he called me to say goodbye… I knew." Mustang swallowed audibly. "I want you to go away, Fullmetal. You see Alphonse is alive. I will not let the two of you meet until he's stronger. I will fix what you have broken."

"But… he's my brother," Ed said feebly. "I love…"

"Shut your mouth." And Mustang's voice was beyond cold and moving into glacial. "Don't say that to me. Al told me what he did. How he kissed you. How he thought you felt the same for him. To be truthful, I did too. After all these years, I thought you loved him that way too. You certainly acted as if you did. You certainly fooled me, and I am an expert in this field. I am asking you to leave now, Fullmetal. I think it might be better if we transferred you to another CO. I do not think our working together anymore is a good idea."

"But I do love him! Just… just… I never thought…."

"Silence, Fullmetal. This is all your doing. You acted as if you were in love with your brother all these years, and I wasn't the only one to notice either. No wonder Al thought you loved him the way he loved you. He was honest with his feelings when all along you weren't. Have you ever been honest about anything, Edward? Why did you bring his body back, lay in bed with him, when neither of you were the children you used to be? You lay with him like a lover, and then slapped him down like a dog when he took you at face value. Then you walked away from him. Not two weeks after everything the both of you suffered to get where you are." He looked coldly at Ed's mostly restored body. "At least you have been completely restored. I wish you happiness, Fullmetal. But I can't be your Commanding Officer anymore. I can't stand the sight of you. When you brought Al back, I watched… and it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. It restored my faith in humanity, you and your brother's love. I confess I was jealous. I wanted him to look at me the way he did you. That beautiful wild creature you brought back from the gate. I was jealous of you. Well, he's mine now, and I will fix what you tried to destroy. Alphonse is mine now, and I will give him the love you pretended to."

Ed's hands turned to fists at his sides. "He's _my _brother, you bastard. You can't have him. I won't let you hurt him with your womanizing ways and…"

Mustang laughed mirthlessly. "Me, hurt him? I'm in love with your brother, Fullmetal. I have been since the moment he first opened his beautiful eyes right in that damn living room back there." Mustang's hand trembled as he pointed down the hall. "You lied to your brother when you pretended to love him like you did. You lied to everyone. And I thought… now that he had his body back, you would claim him as you acted as if you wanted to. But since you didn't, since you did everything in your power to destroy the sweetest, most beautiful, purest creature to ever grace this god forsaken planet, I will claim him. He's mine now. Get the hell out of my house, Fullmetal, and never come back. If Al ever wants to see you again, we will discuss it. But until then, get the fuck out and don't come back."


	3. Chapter 3

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 11,865  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **Not mine, too bad. Not mine, so sad.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 3

Three Years Later 

The unrest on the Drachman border had flared up yet again. Border towns were raided, and civilians were dying. The military moved in, including the state alchemists. Under Fuhrer Hakuro, the soldiers stayed on the Amestrian borders, protecting those that survived, and killing any Drachmen that crossed over. Towns burned, casualties rose, and the Fuhrer was forced to declare war. Soldiers and Alchemists from all over were sent to the front.

Fullmetal had been posted at the border for over two years now. He was weary of the war, weary of life, yet the damned partner his CO Falkner had stuck him with kept him from finding the death he so yearned for. But Sam Jansen, as much a protégé in his own right as Ed, save in warfare, not alchemy, was like a Siamese twin. Edward couldn't sit down and take a shit without the older man breathing down his neck. Eventually, he slipped into a dulled sense of life, fighting when he had to, and living when he had to do that. He no long actively sought death, deeming that it would eventually find him. It wasn't like he really cared anymore.

When he heard that General Mustang had arrived with his regiments, Edward was not on hand to watch the reinforcements march in. Sam resented this. He'd wanted to finally at least see the famed Flame Alchemist, even if Ed didn't. But it was so ingrained that he stick to Fullmetal, that he missed everything. But Sam had left Ed in the mess hall, and went and snuck a peek at the man and his retinue, and all the massed blue clad warriors, fresh and ready to join the fray.

When Sam wandered back into the mess hall some time later, he sat down next to Ed, who had long finished eating and had been simply enjoying the rare respite from his watchdog and actually having a moment of solitude. Sam plopped down, a dazed look on his face.

"Well," Ed inquired sourly. "Was he all that you dreamed he was?"

Sam, well aware that there was no love lost between Flame and Fullmetal, ignored the sarcastic tone, and nodded dreamily.

Ed snorted. He was familiar with his friend/watchdog's sexual preferences. Mustang had that effect on men and women alike. "So, gonna ask him out on a date?"

"Oh, I wish!" Sam said, reaching over and plucking Ed's abandoned and rather hard roll from the half eaten tray. He shredded it between nervous fingers. "I don't think I've ever seen a more beautiful man. My god…."

Ed wanted to retch. "Oh, please. Sure, Mustang's good looking, but he's not all that."

Sam laughed. "Oh, god, not him. He's handsome enough, I guess. But… There was another with him. Well, lots actually. The man has more guards than a dog has fleas. I don't know who he is, but I'm gonna find out. Beautiful blonde hair, and my god, the uniform was made for a body like his. Even with a gun slung over his shoulder, he looked…. Beautiful…" Sam sighed.

Ed pondered. A blonde with a gun. "Havoc, I guess. He's been with Mustang since the world began. Heh, I didn't know you went for the chain smoking bad boy wanna be's, Sam." Ed chuckled.

"Chain smoking bad boy wanna be? What the hell are you talking about? He wasn't smoking, and he certainly didn't look like a bad boy, wanna be or otherwise. Hair the color of honey, eyes like beaten bronze, and the most beautiful, angelic face I've ever seen…. Fuck, I have got to meet him!"

Ed stilled. It… it couldn't be…." What did you say?" He choked out.

"Shit! Shit! There he is! Look, Fullmetal. Isn't he all that I said he was?" Sam hissed, looking to the flap of the mess hall tent.

Feeling like he was caught in slow motion, Ed turned to the opening, and sure enough, Mustang was coming in, smiling and waving to the others that rose from their benches and applauded the new arrivals. Havoc, Hawkeye, Breda, Falman, Fury, hell, even Armstrong. But then a young man stepped out from behind Armstrong, and Ed turned to stone.

Alphonse was taller, so much taller than he had been, three years ago. His hair was messily cropped, as if too much a bother to be kept up. He was angular and wiry, all the soft velvety curves gone. And his eyes… god, they were…. Not quite blank, but they looked around without seeming to care about anything. The rifle slung over his shoulder was obscenely out of place on his sweet and generous and kind to a fault little brother, but the young man wore it as if accustomed to its presence. And Sam was right. The blue Military uniform fit him as if tailored just for him. Ed had forgotten how beautiful his little brother was. Not so little anymore. Hell, Al was taller than Sam. And men and women alike looked at him with sheep eyes, and he didn't even care.

With his heart in his mouth, he noticed Havoc leaning over to talk to him, one hand raised as if to touch the younger man's arm, but didn't quite make contact. It was something Ed would notice as the days passed. Alphonse didn't allow anyone to touch him, not even Mustang. Ed felt his heart squeeze in his breast, and fought tears.

"What did I tell you?" Sam whispered, grinning, and finally tore his eyes from Alphonse to look at his partner. "Fullmetal? Are you alright?"

Ed shook his head, to clear it, not disagree. "I'm fine. His name's Alphonse Elric. He's my brother." The younger man's voice was flat and dull.

Sam's eyes widened. "What? That stunning creature is your brother?" He looked again at the object of his desire. "Why didn't you tell me? Ed? Ed?"

But Ed was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 11,865  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **Not mine, too bad. Not mine, so sad.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 4

The Soul Alchemist wasn't much in evidence in the ensuing few days, much to a lot of people's disappointment. He stuck very close to Mustang, often standing hipshot next to his General, eyes bored and face closed. But the young alchemist had a shadow he didn't even know he had. Edward was just about stalking his little brother. Then he realized something. Al wasn't keeping close to Mustang, Mustang was keeping close to him. The General often followed his young subordinate around, watching with narrowed eyes. The rest of the old gang did too. Everyone thought Soul was there to guard the general, but it was more like everyone was protecting him.

Ed's heart ached continuously. Al had enlisted. His Alchemy was such that he was called Soul, able to put pieces of himself into inanimate objects. It was rumored he could possess people too, which made Ed shudder. Al… was changed. Completely and utterly. Such a thing would have been anathema to him before, but now, Al went about his life with a placid face, as if noticing nothing. But Ed quickly realized he noticed everything and took greater care to make sure Al didn't discover him stalking him.

Sam was bewildered. Not only did the fact that Ed didn't approach his brother at all, he had a hell of a time keeping track of Fullmetal. Thankfully, the younger man didn't take the opportunity to off himself. And Ed changed. As belligerent and foul mouthed as Fullmetal was, he became quiet, introspective, leaving the older man to wonder exactly what happened between Fullmetal and Soul so long ago.

Four days after Mustang and his reinforcements arrived, they went to war. Ed was beside himself. He couldn't imagine Alphonse on the field of battle. He was terrified that his brother would be killed in action, and Ed wouldn't be there to save him. Edward was with his own battalion, two away. But if he narrowed his eyes, he could see his brother, standing beside Mustang, facing the front, no fear in his face.

There was an explosion, and Ed screamed. Dirt and grass and bloody bits flew up into the air where his brother's regiment was. He broke away, running to the site of the bomb. Sam shouted and ran after, him. Falkner swore, and then the troops moved. If Ed survived this, the CO grimly thought, he would kill Fullmetal himself. The Drachmans were flooding the plain, and the battle was on.

Ed didn't even pay attention to the troops that streamed past him, intent on reaching the front and doing what damage they could before more bombs started falling. There was another explosion to his left, and Ed was showered with dirt and grass, and wet warm gore. He paid it no heed, and vaulted over the shallow crater the first bomb had created. Ignoring the dead and dying, his eyes searched the ground desperately.

"Alphonse!" He heard Mustang screaming in fury. "Get back here! Now!"

Through the smoke and dust, he saw Mustang, snapping repeatedly, flames exploding all around a whirling dervish of death. It took him a minute to realize it was his brother. The boy had rigged his rifle strap somehow, and Al used it here and there, taking out Drachmen with deadly accuracy, until someone got too close. Then the rifle spun back onto his back, and the boy was fighting like a maniac. Enemy soldiers were dropping like flies as they tried to take him down. Then he would clap his gloved hands together, grab one of the enemy, let go, and the rifle was back in his hands. The man he'd touched would turn on his comrades, killing indiscriminately until one of his own took him out. Mustang took out others that might have slipped past the boy's guard, men screaming in agony as they burst into flames, the stench of burning flesh heavy amid the smoke of battle. Havoc and Hawkeye had dropped to one knee and were picking off others around with terrifying speed and accuracy.

By the time Ed drew his armblade, Sam right behind him with rifle barking as his bullets joined the other sharpshooters, Al had touched several men. The Drachmen were now too busy fighting off their own possessed men to effectively fight the Amestrians. It was a ripple effect. Mustang called over his radio, and the other regiments began to close in.

Ed, fighting for his life and his country now, Sam's grim face in his periphery, nevertheless kept an eye on his deadly brother. And noticed that Al was flagging. But he wasn't the only one.

"Surround him!" Mustang barked. "He's spread himself too thin!"

In heartbeat, Ed found himself fighting alongside his old comrades. They spared him a glance, a grim nod, and continued the fight. They circled around Al, who was staggering now, and then fell to his knees. Mustang shot past the protective ring and caught the boy in his arms as he was about to dive nose first into the blood soaked ground.

Ed was frightened. Al's eyes were open, but they didn't seem to be tracking. He had to turn his back on his brother then, as the Drachmen were now fighting desperately for their lives, encircled by the Amestrian forces. Then Ed noticed something. Several of the men Al had touched were still alive, killing their own. When one of the possessed comrades finally killed him, that man would reach out as he was falling, already dead, and touch someone else. And that someone would then turn on his own, like the first. It was spreading out, and then Ed understood. Al had too much of his soul out on the field to protect his own body, so Mustang and the others were.

Just over three hours later, the battle ground down to a few sporadic skirmishes here and there. Al's protective ring simply shot the odd man still standing, until an unearthly silence fell.

Ed was jostled, and he looked back, startled, to see Mustang striding away, carrying Al, whose eyes were closed now, as limp as if he were dead. "Wait!" He cried, desperate.

Havoc gave him a cool look, and walked after his commander and comrade. The others followed suit, but Hawkeye hesitated. "He's alright, Fullmetal. He's sleeping now. It's always like this in battle with Soul. He spreads himself to thin, but that's why we're here. We protect him. He's Amestris' secret weapon, as you have seen." She looked sorrowful. "Yeah." Then she turned and walked away too.

Ed stood there, among the dead and the dying, barely hearing the screams and cries and moans of pain. Didn't notice he was drenched with blood, armblade still extended, dripping gore onto the red tinted churned mud. Didn't notice Sam at his side, panting and spent.

Al slept for two days after the battle. When word got out about his technique, once more his protectors were on hand to hold friendly people at bay now. Everyone wanted to see the boy that had basically bested the Drachman army. And the realization, what Ed had already noticed, that Mustang's personal retinue was not there to protect the general, but his prized subordinate, the Soul Alchemist.

Ed didn't even try to get close. He knew he would never be let in. He simply kept to his own tent, nursing his wounds and thinking. Al must have killed hundreds, if not thousands of men with his own hands. Or rather, the hands of men through whose eyes he saw, who's legs he'd used, whose hands he killed with. Ed would never have thought that Al would have been capable of such wholesale slaughter. Alphonse, who cried at a dead animal in the road, who'd been horrified when men and women and children died all around them during their quest, who'd wept without tears for days when so many soldiers were killed to make the stone. Al had done this thing. Al had killed and killed and killed.

Ed buried his face in his hands and cried. The Alphonse Elric he'd known was gone. He'd died the day Al had slit his own wrists in that lonely little house where Ed had abandoned him. What had come of that wraith he'd seen days later in Mustang's living room was now sleeping five tents down, and Ed didn't know him at all. Ed had killed his little brother, and wept for the cold creature that once warm and loving boy had become.

Sam and Falkner had relaxed their vigilance. Ed hadn't tried to get himself killed in some time. And with his brother, albeit estranged, there, they felt safe in leaving him in relative peace during the battle's aftermath. Thus, Ed was free to wander off, two days after his brother woke from his coma.

Heart aching, once more death was all he could think about. It was hard enough to live with the memory of his brother in Mustang's living room. But the day before, he'd crossed paths with Al, and those cool bronze eyes had swept over him without a look of recognition. Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric. Ed stumbled off into the nearby woods, and fell to his knees, and sobbed wildly, where no one could hear him.

Once his tears were spent, he lay face down in the bracken and pine needles and vaguely thought of just laying there until the crows picked his bones. But then there was an ominous click, and something cold and hard nudged the back of his head.


	5. Chapter 5

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 11,865  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **Not mine, too bad. Not mine, so sad.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 5

"Absolutely not!" Mustang was saying furiously. "You are out of your mind! I will NOT sacrifice Soul for Fullmetal. He shouldn't have been wandering around in the woods."

Fuhrer Hakuro simply sat at the table and eyed his general quietly. Then he turned to the young man in question. "The Drachman's say they will kill Fullmetal if we don't turn you over to them. As much as I regret this, you are far more valuable to us than he is. He's become something of a liability in the last few years. With him gone, Lt. Jansen can be put to work in a more fitting capacity than babysitting one of our State Alchemists, no matter how talented."

Falkner watched the two men mutinously. "How can you sit there and let them kill him! I'm not saying give them Soul. Hell no. But we have to do something! He's more than a state alchemist! He's Fullmetal. Hero of the People!" He turned to the placid younger man. "He's your brother!"

Al finally looked up, eyes cool and distant. "I am no brother to Edward Elric." With that curiously worded phrase, Al got up and left the tent.

Sam stood paralyzed, and watched the cold young man pass him. "Bastard," he hissed.

Al paused and looked at him.

"You may be no brother to Ed, but dammit, he's yours. But you would walk away and let him die. And I thought you were so… perfect. So beautiful and angelic. But you're nothing but an empty pretty shell. Ed's ten times the human that you are! Why don't you go back to the battle field and find the pieces of your soul, because you don't have any anymore." Sam spat at his feet, whirled around and ran away.

Since Fullmetal's capture, getting out of the barricaded camp was very difficult. But Sam, dressed in camouflage managed to slip past the sentries, and trotted along the wooden wall, looking for a good enough spot to climb over.

A floodlight began pacing the wall ahead of him, and Sam froze, then ducked behind a crate as it swept past. Breathing a shaky sigh of relief, he crept back out, to find himself face to face with the cold eyes of Soul.

"Get the fuck out of my way," Sam said quietly. "I'm going to get him."

Soul gave him a bland smile, reached out and touched the wooden wall. There was a barely perceptible shimmer, and there was suddenly an open gap there. With a jerk of his head, Soul vanished through it. After a moment's hesitation, Sam followed.

Once on the other side, Soul closed the gap, and the two of them slunk away into the trees.

When he knew they were far enough away to not be overheard, he looked at the younger man running lightly beside him. "What are you doing here?" Sam said sarcastically. "Don't you know your so much more valuable than Fullmetal? It's not like he's your brother, as you said."

"I said I am no brother to Edward," Soul said softly, never hesitating in his steps. "But he is mine."

It was almost dawn when they crossed the border and came to the enemy encampment. Once again, Soul opened the way, and closed it behind them. It was easy to find where they were keeping Fullmetal. He was chained to a post in the ground. His automail hand, all that he'd kept when transmuting Al three years ago, had been removed. Ed was kneeling in the dirt, his hair filthy, blood spattering the ground from a split lip and bloody nose. There were Drachmen around him, laughing, jeering, hitting him, spitting on him, even urinating on him.

Sam was appalled, and he turned cold. This was all a ruse. The Drachmen planned to not only kill Soul, but they had no intentions of turning Fullmetal over to the Amestrians. Then his head jerked towards his companion. Soul had let out a soft growl, and his cold eyes were burning with fire.

Soul darted out and touched a passing Drachman. The man jerked, then ambled slowly over to where Ed's metal hand lay on the ground. He picked it up, and the others were too busy abusing Ed to notice. He brought it back to Soul, who took it, handed it to Sam, then nodded at his victim. The man nodded back, pulled out his knife, and slit his own throat. The man fell in a quiet thud at Soul's feet. Soul didn't even bother looking at the dead man.

"When I distract them, you get Ed, and put his hand back on."

Before Sam could react, Soul skirted the clearing of buildings, and then walked quietly into the weak light of the lamp. The rising sun turned his honey gold hair to flame.

There was a moment of stunned silence. OF course they recognized him. They drew back in fear, but then Soul spread his arms in the universal gesture of supplication. In a moment, he was surround, someone punched him in the face, and his head snapped back.

Ed looked up, and saw this and gave an agonized cry. "No, Al, no!"

The Commander sauntered up to the younger man, and stayed the others before they could hit him again. "Stop. He will be publicly executed. Do not damage his face any further. They must know who he is when we kill him."

Ed was whining, struggling against his bonds. "No… no no no no no…."

The commander laughed. "And don't hit this one anymore either. We'll kill them together. Such close brothers should die together, don't you think?"

He leaned over and yanked off Al's gloves. "There. Now you're unarmed. Filthy fucking alchemist. But now that your arrays are gone, what are you going to do?"

Sam slipped behind the men, unshackled Ed, and thrust the hand into Ed's flesh one. Ed blinked, shoved it into his wrist port, and fell face first into Sam's arms to stifle the groan of pain.

When Al saw Ed lift his head again, eyes streaming, but gold and bright with anger and rage, he gave another little smile and brought his hands together.

The commander sneered. "What, without your arrays, you are worse than useless."

The men holding Soul suddenly stiffened. Then all of them pulled out their guns and began to slaughter the Drachmen around him. All except for the Commander.

"What the hell! But... but... your gloves, your arrays…" The commander was babbling in shock, and then Al touched him.

The commander stiffened, then proceeded to beat the holy hell out of himself. A few moments later, he staggered away. Sam growled and leapt after him.

"Stop, Jansen," Soul commanded coldly. "He has a use to me still." Soul's eyes were slightly glazed. The slaughter went on all around them. The possessed soldiers were dying, and passing pieces of Al's soul along as they went.

Ed stood there, watching his brother's inwardly turned eyes, and felt a hollow pain. Something deep in Al's eyes flickered each time one of the possessed men died. With horror, Ed realized something chilling. Al was still inside the men as they died. He had to, to pass himself along to the next victim. Al felt each man die. And something inside the boy that used to be his brother died a little bit too. Soul's coldness wasn't just from Ed's cruel rejection three years ago, but from feeling death inside his soul over and over and over again. Numbly, Ed wondered when Al's soul would finally die too. Would the body simply stop, and fall down when there was nothing left of the Soul Alchemist to die anymore? Or would he simply become a soulless, killing machine, something he was already so close to being. Like a… homunculus… Ed wanted to vomit as he saw, finally saw, the far reaching ripples of that day in that little house so long ago, when he turned in disgust from his passionate little brother.

Soul was swaying now. Sam and Ed jumped to take his arms, but then he gasped, and bowed his head. It was only then that the other two realized everything was over. There was a deathly stillness in the air. Everyone except themselves, and the commander, wherever he was, was dead. The morning air was cold and reeked of blood and death. Soul drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and lifted his head. And his cold eyes never changed as they swept across the body-strewn ground. He walked purposefully to the closed gate of the encampment. He staggered slightly, caught his footing, but when he went to clap his hands and lay them on the wooden gate, far too heavy for him to open himself, Ed beat him to it. And blew it right off its posts.

With the rising sun warming their backs, they walked back to their own encampment. About a mile down the grassy field, Soul suddenly stopped, turning his head back and forth slowly, delicate nostrils flaring. He threw back his head, and gave a raucous cry, like that of a hawk. He repeated the sound.

There was a moment of silence, then two men burst from the trees to the right. They were garbed in shades of green and gold, and Sam's gun came up.

Soul laid his hand lightly and very briefly on that man's firearm. "No. They are ours."

Sure enough, as the two men came close, one of them stripped off the full hood to reveal Havoc's weary face, wreathed in smiles.

"Alphonse, my god, you're safe!" Havoc was saying, eyes suspiciously bright. Once more, the man moved to touch the boy, but didn't quite. The man with him was Falman.

Quietly, Soul told them the encampment had been completely neutralized. Falman nodded, and sped quickly back the way he had come.

Ed, dulled by the knowledge that his own foolhardiness had led Al to massacre on a grand scale again, coughed wetly, and spat out a tooth. His face and body was throbbing.

For the first time, Sam saw something… alive… in Soul's eyes. Soul suddenly turned, touched his hands together, and laid them lightly on Ed's face.

Ed jerked, surprised, and then hissed. Uncomfortable heat spread out from those two light points of contact. A sharp, splitting pain blossomed in his mouth, and he groaned.

Then Soul's hands were gone, as was the heat, and most of the pain. His gums ached where the two teeth that had been knocked out had been, and running a now unbitten tongue around his mouth, he realized his teeth were back. And his cuts and bruises were gone as well. Shocked, he stared at his brother.

Soul's face flinched, then smoothed out. One of the boy's hands came up and swiped at his mouth, but not before the three other men saw that his mouth was bleeding.

With a frisson, Ed realized that what was now in his mouth, used to be in Al's. His brother had given him two of his own teeth. "Al…" he whispered, torn in heart and mind. "Why?"

"Because I loved you." The voice never changed, not the pitch or timber or tone. Then, without an expression crossing the younger boy's face, Soul turned away, and began the walk back to the encampment, leaving the other three to follow or not.

Havoc immediately trotted after the boy, but Ed stood there, stunned. _Loved, not love. _Oh, yes. He really had killed his brother. Only a little bit of him remained in the beautiful, but empty body now walking quickly away. Ed and Sam followed silently.


	6. Chapter 6

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 11,865  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **Not mine, too bad. Not mine, so sad.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 6

Mustang whisked Soul away the moment the boy crossed back into the Amestrian camp. Sam and Ed got a severe tongue lashing from Falkner, then were marched to the Fuhrer's tent. There, they found Mustang, Havoc, and Soul. As soon as the two of them entered, Mustang and Soul departed, and again, the younger Elric's eyes swept over Ed as if he didn't even see him.

The Fuhrer and his cabinet grilled each of them separately within an inch of their lives. Ed quietly related everything from the moment he felt the gun at the back of his head the day before, to meeting Havoc on the road back. A medic was there and thoroughly examined him, but everyone in the tent knew he would be fine. Soul never did anything without excelling at it. When he was led out, it was Sam's turn. Then both of them found themselves confined to their tent, basically under house arrest. There they stayed, for the better part of a week. They saw no one, save the soldier that would bring them their meals, or take them to the latrines.

It was an uncomfortable time for Ed. He wanted to grieve, but couldn't with Sam always there. On the second day, the uncomfortable silence stretched until the older man couldn't bear it anymore.

"What the hell happened to your brother to make him like he is?" Sam finally asked, his face shuttered.

Ed looked at him and sighed. He knew that look. Sam wouldn't rest until he knew. And part of Ed wanted to tell him. In the last two years, Sam had become… his friend. He was exactly sure when it had happened, for the younger man had resented his watchdog greatly. But he'd realized, looking into Sam's handsome face when that man shoved his automail hand into his living one in the enemy camp, that he'd become very fond of him. Likewise, he was afraid that when Sam finally knew what had happened, he would turn away from him in disgust. He sat silently for a very long time, torn.

"Tell me, Edward," Sam said in a steely voice. "I will not let you be until you do. I think I deserve to know."

Ed's eyes were haunted. "Fine. But what you hear goes no further than this tent. Mustang already knows, as does Havoc. How many others do, I don't know. But no one must ever know from what I will tell you."

"Don't piss me off, Fullmetal," Sam snapped. "As if you needed to say anything like that to me. What do you take me for?"

"Al… Al and I are only a year apart. He's younger than me. And how I loved him. I really, really did. Which makes what I did even more… terrible. Anyway, we had a really good life together. Our dad left just after Al was born, but other than that, we had a pretty idyllic childhood. We did everything together. Everything. Dad was a talented alchemist, and he passed that on to us. How we loved it. Especially because it made our mother smile. It reminded her of him, you see? And since it made her smile so much, we worked at it constantly. We became… protégé's at it. All to see her smile.

"Then she died. Just all of a sudden. We didn't even know she'd been sick, but she had been. For a very long time. And Al… god, his face, his eyes. He was only ten when it happened. He needed his mother. Hell, so did I, but I would have died rather than admit it. I'd been reading Dad's books, and I found something. Human transmutation."

Sam drew in a startled breath, but didn't say anything for fear that Ed would stop talking.

"We found ourselves a good alchemy teacher. We had to know more than Dad's books could teach us," Ed went on, his voice soft. "And she was good. She taught us a lot. When we were done, we went back home, and tried to resurrect our mother. It didn't work. There's a terrible place when you use alchemy like that. I call it the gate. Don't ask me about it. I wont tell you a damn thing. It ate my left leg, to just below the knee. And it killed Al outright. Consumed him, body, mind and soul. But Al… he's everything to me. Always was, always will be. I offered myself for him, and the gate took my right arm all the way past the shoulder. And in return, it gave me Al's soul. I bound it to a suit of armor in the basement. He took me to our neighbor's house, who does automail. They took care of me. But Al… god…" Ed realized he was crying, slow tears trickling down his cheeks. "There was nothing that could be done for him. I got better, and I got them to give me automail. Then we went and I enlisted in the army, and became a dog of the military. I hated it, but I had to. I had to have access to the research material I needed to get Al's body back. Al… I wish you could have known him before I… destroyed him. Again. He was so warm, and loving. So upbeat and optimistic. And he never blamed me for what he had become. It was my fault, my crime, my idea. I drove us to do the human transmutation. And all it took from me was my leg, and all of my brother. But he never blamed me. Never."

Ed fell silent a moment, and Sam saw his eyes were not looking at anything in particular. A shiver went up the older man's spine to think that Ed was looking back through the years. Finally he went on. "Even as armor, with no sensation of touch, or smell or taste… He couldn't even sleep. He would just sort of… shut down, to give his soul rest from time to time. For someone like Al, it was a living hell, an endless nightmare from which he could not awaken. I took him with me. On all my missions, I took my ten year old little brother, locked in unfeeling armor. My brother grew up, watching people die around him, grew up having to kill sometimes too. Oh, how he would grieve. Even if he wasn't responsible for killing anyone. He could cry without tears… and do you have any idea how terrible that is to see and hear? …even for a dead cat or dog in the road. And through it all, he never doubted me, never blamed me, never stopped being so… human. Somewhere along the way, I lost a lot of my humanity. I know that now. And through everything, he loved me. Loved me more than life itself. Only once did his situation get to him. He began to doubt he was real. I knew then, I had to step up our efforts. I had to get his body back before I lost him for good. Mustang was my CO. He did everything he could to help us find the philosopher's stone, an alchemic catalyst reputed to enable an alchemist to perform without equivalent exchange. Well, we found it, finally. Though the death and blood and treachery, we found it. Do you know, that when a stone is made, it takes human lives, in massive amounts? And Al, my loving and tender Al, was right in the middle of that alchemic storm when the stone was born. All those deaths flowing around and into him. Al _became _the philosopher's stone. My Al! All those deaths, locked inside his armor. God." Ed shuddered.

Sam felt as if he was turned to stone. Other than a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, he felt completely numb.

"Well, I wont go into it, for it's a long, drawn out sordid and desperate tale. Suffice it to say, soulless creatures, homunculi, stole Al, wanting to use the stone, use him, for their own purposes. But I have to add something. A homunculus is what happens when someone does human transmutation on a dead body. They become a monster, requiring red stones, faint copies of the real stone, and likewise made with human lives, to become… human looking. But they have no soul. They are simply constructs; living dolls. And hey, guess what? We did it. We made one. Our mother. But she wasn't our mother. She tried to kill us, tried to kill Al. We had to kill her instead. My baby brother, watched as we both killed a monster that we'd created from our mother's death. But even this wasn't enough to kill Al's soul. He still had me, you see? I was his touchstone, his hub, the center of his universe, like he was mine. We lived only for each other, and survived only because of each other.

"Of course, there was more homunculus than the one that looked like our mother. There was several, but one… one was our half brother. My father, who used alchemy and philosopher stones like they were candy and of no consequence, to keep himself alive for hundreds of years. This particular homunculus, Envy, was created out of his son from when he was young. And Envy hated us. He was the one that stole Al. Well, I went after them. And he killed me. Envy killed me. My little brother, filled with the souls of hundreds of murdered humans, watched our half brother kill me.

"He brought me back. And… didn't use the stone. I guess… I don't know why he didn't. Or if he did, but the gate didn't take it. There's something in the gate that wants him, because, once more, it took all of him. I saw him for a moment, as our souls passed at the gate. I saw him, and knew. And the stone… it passed to me. It was in me now. And I used it. I brought him back. Brought him and his body back. And there was enough left over to fix my body too, though I kept my automail hand. It's very handy, as you may have noticed. I kept it. And fixed Al's body. It was a mess, half dead with starvation, and still the body of a ten year old. I used the stone, fixed his body, and aged him to what he should be. I couldn't see putting my fifteen-year-old brother's soul into a ten-year-old body. And my god, he's beautiful. So very beautiful. How I loved him. How I love him still."

Here Ed fell silent for a very long time, head lowered, eyes hidden behind his bangs. Sam simply watched him, spellbound. It was such a fantastic story, so desperately insane, that something told him that every word of it was true. He'd heard whispers of such creatures as Ed had described. Not how they were made, but that they did exist. After all, their ex-Fuhrer, Bradley, had been one. And he'd heard whispers of such catalysts like the philosophers stone. And that Fullmetal had been in the thick of that particular little alchemic debacle. Just like Mustang, who had killed him had been.

Finally, Ed went on. "He was so beautiful, inside and out. Sweet, pure, kind, gentle, holy, tender, generous, brave, loyal, loving… the list goes on and on. Suffice it to say Alphonse Elric was an earthbound angel. And how he loved me. I was everything to him. So much so, that… that… I killed him. You want to know why the Soul Alchemist is what he is? It's because of me. All those years, and not just the ones when Al was armor, I kept him by my side, constantly. I made sure he had no one but me. Why? Because I love him. I needed him. He was my everything too. I couldn't stand even one day without him. The few times we were separated were torment to me. And… and… somewhere along the line, he fell in love with me. Al fell in love with his brother.

"Deep down inside, I knew this. I had to. As soon as he got his body back, I made sure to keep him beside me. Even when we slept, I kept him beside me. And two weeks after he became human again, he kissed me. He gave me his lover's touch. You see, he thought I felt the same way about him. Everyone who knew us certainly thought I was. And he did too. His face, when he kissed me… so beautiful, so shy and hopeful and vulnerable. He handed me everything. His heart, mind, body and soul. All mine. And you know what I did with it? Do you know what I did with the honor of his love, his life, his all?"

Ed finally looked up, eyes blazing in his face, his mouth a grimace of pain as he stared at his stunned friend. "I spit on it! I spit on him! I shoved him away from me. I told him he was sick, disgusting, depraved. We were _brothers_ and he was trying to make love to me. How could he do something like that? I couldn't stand to be around him anymore, couldn't be his brother anymore, and I told him so. I just got up out of the bed I made him lay in with me, and walked out the door, and abandoned him. Two weeks, Sam. He'd had his body, his teenaged body, filled with confusing hormones and urges and feelings and sensations after half a decade of nothingness, for only two weeks. And amid all that confusion, without even a moment to prepare for such a life altering time, he turned to me, because he loved me over everything, even his own life. He turned to the brother that had locked him to his side for all our lives together, who had led everyone who knew us to believe that I loved him the same as he did me. He turned to me, freely handed me his heart and soul and body. His face, his eyes, shining with such hope and love for me. So confident and self-assured. So very in love with me. And I spit on him, his love, his heart, his hopes, his dreams, and his very life. Oh…oh god…."

Ed gave a choking braying sob, but almost immediately mastered himself. "He had nothing now. For five years, through all the death and murder and dismemberment, betrayal, corruption, cruelty, abuse, abduction and agony, he managed to stay sane, to stay human, to stay _Al, _because he had me, my love, my protection, my companionship. Then he was alone, abandoned by the only person he loved and trusted implicitly. Rejected with cruel and callous recriminations and abandonment by the brother that had made him fall in love in the first place. He'd been alive for only two weeks, and he tried to kill himself. He felt he didn't deserve to live for driving me away. That he deserved to die for the crime of loving his brother too much. If Mustang hadn't acted as quickly as he had, Al would have died. He certainly tried to. He slit his wrists, from wrist to elbow, both of them. Can you imagine how that must have hurt? But the cuts were almost surgical in their precision. I never got the chance to see them, but weeks afterwards, Mustang sent me the hospital report, which I destroyed. Just as Mustang destroyed the originals. I went to Mustang's because I'd heard he'd committed suicide. I finally saw what I'd done, finally realized what had happened. Once again, I'd killed my little brother, and this time I couldn't claim it was an unknowing accident, like it had been when we tried to transmute our mother. No, this time I did it knowingly. Well, when I got there, I found out that Mustang had got to him in time. He was… oh, god, Sam. He was a wraith of himself. And his eyes… You think they're bad now, and they are, you should have seen them then. The agony, the shame, the self-disgust and self-recrimination in them. And his arms… bandaged from wrists to elbows. He was so anxious to escape me, weeping apologies to me until my heart shattered. I did this to him! My sweet and loving and so confident brother. Confident in me. Confident in my love for him. And I destroyed him. Mustang sent me away. Told me to never come back. You see, I had acted like I was in love with my brother. Everyone that really knew us saw this. That's the horror of it all. _I led him on, encouraged his love for me, for years!_ Then rejected him in the worst possible way. Mustang sent me away, to Falkner. And you know the rest."

Ed looked away for a moment, and Sam was utterly silent. Then he turned back to his friend, and Sam repressed a cry of shock. Ed's eyes were as dead as Al's. "Do you want to know the real kicker, Sam? I _was _in love with my brother. I didn't realize it, but I was. I had been all along. Al fell in love with me when he was armor, because I bound him to my side as surely as I bound his soul to that armor. But I fell in love with him when we were children. That's why I bound him to me the way I did. But you see, being in love with someone, means admitting a need. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't admit I needed my brother to live because I was in love with him. And that night, in bed together, when he finally told me how he felt, it scared me. Terrified me. And I don't handle fear and terror well at all. I told him it was sick and disgusting because it scared me. And it scared me because it _felt so good!_ His hands on my body, his mouth and tongue in mine, his heated words of passionate love, _felt good!_ No, better than good. It was heat and rapture and pleasure and joy and love and peace and happiness and light…. And it terrified me. And I turned on him like a rabid dog!"

Ed didn't even realize, but he'd fallen to his knees, his words almost lost in heaving sobs. "I did this to him, Sam. I killed Alphonse Elric again, and from that death rose the Soul Alchemist. His eyes are cold because he doesn't care about life anymore. He kills because nothing matters to him anymore. He wont let anyone touch him, because I wouldn't. He feels he doesn't deserve to live, that he's not deserving of love, that he's damned for all time, and not because of the human transmutation, but because he fell in love with a brother that forced it on him and then damned him for it and walked away. I did it! I did it! I did it! I killed him!"

When Ed had fallen to the floor, Sam snapped out of his daze and ran to comfort his stricken friend. But the sobs, the rising screams of self-denigration, the shuddering grief began to scare him. He shook Ed, hugged him, whispered words of encouragement to him, but nothing got through. Ed's hysteria was growing worse. Finally, Sam reached back, and slapped the younger man hard across the face.

Ed fell onto his back, but at least he fell silent. The only noise in the tent was the sound of breathing; Ed's gasping and Sam's shivering. Finally, Ed sat up, hand to his cheek.

"Thank you," he said quietly. Then he got up, went and laid down on the bed with his face to the canvas wall, and wouldn't say anything else.

AN: This is the last chapter I have on file, and I am unsure as to where I should go with this. Should I let Al sacrifice his life for Ed? Vice Versa? Let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 2,502  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **When pigs fly.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

**Note: **This chapter is for you Althea, for all your moral support. Thank you!

PHOENIX RISING

Chapter 7

Sam respected this for the rest of that day, and some of the next. And he finally understood why Edward had sought death on the battlefield. He was still too arrogant to admit defeat, and thus couldn't commit suicide as his brother had attempted, so he tried to get others to kill him. Sam heaved a quiet sigh, and stared at Ed's silent back.

As outlandish as Ed's tale had been, he believed it. Ed had been so sincere. Though the younger man could lie with a straight face, there was grief and shame and horror in Ed's eyes all through the painful recitation. And there were other clues; the homunculus Bradley, Fullmetal's mysterious armored brother, Mustang's apparent rancor towards Ed when once Fullmetal had been the apple of his superior's eyes. All the confusing pieces of the intricate and elaborate puzzle that was Edward Elric suddenly fell into place. And all the whispered rumors when Fullmetal was roaming the countryside with his mysterious brother… rumors of dark acts, impossible quests, and forbidden love. Everything in Ed's life, both the great and the small, the glorious and the shameful, the sweet and the sour, had happened because he loved his little brother more than he should, and had refused to believe it until it was too late.

Nevertheless, when Ed still refused to rise from his cot by lunch the next day, Sam had had enough. He would be damned if he let his alchemist rot away.

"Get up, Ed," he started out gently enough. But as the minutes ticked by and Fullmetal continued to ignore him, keeping his face to the wall, Sam became increasingly more stringent.

"Get the hell out of that bed, Fullmetal," he snapped. "Are you going to lay there and compound your mistakes with yet another? What will happen to Al? It's not too late! Get up, get dressed, brush your stinking teeth and go find your brother before it really is too late. I saw his face when he healed you… Alphonse Elric is still inside that cold shell, and you are the only one who can bring him out! Get up!"

Ed was not convinced by Sam's diatribe one iota, but it was obvious the man would not stop until he at least pretended to listen to him. Sullenly, he slowly got to his feet, clothes irredeemably rumpled, hair half unwound from its braid and hopelessly tangled.

"Fine!" He snarled sullenly. "I'm up. Are you happy now?"

"It's a start," Sam responded evenly. "Geeze, you're a mess! Get your ass to the showers and clean yourself up. You're a disgrace."

"You really know how to turn a guy's head, Sam," Ed snapped, unamused. "Why the hell does it matter what I look like anyway? Didn't you hear a word I said? I did this to Al! I did it! What, you think I can just clean up good, blow into his ear and everything will be alright? Well, it won't!"

"Not with that attitude, it won't," Sam snapped back. Suddenly, he grabbed Ed by the ear and began dragging him out of the tent and to the showers. Though both were still under house arrest, they were free to come and go to the showers and the latrine, as long as one of the guards posted by the flap accompanied them.

Thus, as Sam towed one of the most infamous and deadly state alchemists, looking more than a little unkempt, by the ear, said dangerous man squealing like a pig and following helplessly, the two guards looked helplessly at each other, lips twitching, until one of them jogged after them as they made a most unorthodox spectacle in their journey.

Without batting an eye, Sam, still holding a pincer's grip on Ed's ear, reached into one of the half stalls and turned the water on until billows of steam appeared, and then flung the hapless younger man into it, fully dressed.

If the denizens of the camp thought their foray from tent to lavatory was amusing, that was nothing compared to the outraged screams Ed treated everyone to, as he believed that Sam was trying to boil him like a lobster.

"You bastard! Are you trying to kill me? Why the hell didn't you leave me with the Drachmen? At least then I would have died less painfully!"

"Shut the hell up, cry baby!" Sam bawled back, shaken from his customary cool demeanor by Ed's fractiousness, though it was nothing new to the older man. Ed had always been a difficult charge. But the volatile younger man had truly pushed him beyond his limit. "I should just kill you myself, you ungrateful, spiteful little snot! Quit your whining and wash the funk from your stinking body! I've had to live with your stench for long enough!"

"So what? Like I care! Gimme the damn soap, you fucking harpy! You want clean? I'll give you motherfucking clean!"

"Here!" Sam screamed back, flinging a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap into the stall, narrowly missing dinging Ed in the head.

A moment later, an enormous wad of shampoo lather was flung out and nailed Sam dead in the face.

"You ass!"

"Ha!" Ed squalled in victory, slinging soap out of his hair for another barrage. "I told you I'd show you clean!"

Three quarters of an hour later, both young men were soaked and covered in soap, and brawling like a couple of boys in a school yard. Just when the guard had convinced himself to go in there and get a drubbing like Sam had, the two fell apart, sitting on the tiled floor of the shower, soap bubbles swirling into the drain, and stared at each other, a little bloody, slightly battered, and more than a little soapy, panting as if they'd run a marathon.

Suddenly, Ed began to snicker, then broke out into a full bodied laugh. Even he was struck by the incongruity of the two of them quarreling like children.

Sam swiped a line of frothy blood from his nose and smiled weakly, suddenly ashamed of his behavior even as he was amused. Then he too was laughing, ignoring the deathly stillness of the shocked camp.

Both sighed, and then Ed kicked Sam's foot. "Get the hell out of my shower, you pervert. Get one of your own."

"Oh, yeah, like you have anything I want," Sam sniped back, getting up and exiting Ed's shower to enter the next one, shedding his soapy clothes. "Now shut up and clean up."

Twenty minutes later, the guard escorted the two back to their tent in a much more seemly fashion. Sam averted his eyes to all the stares they were getting, but Ed just sauntered back with his nose in the air. It wasn't like he ever gave a damn what most people thought of him in any event.

Sam kicked Ed's dirty clothes out of the tent flap as the younger man changed into something fresher, then began to comb his long golden hair out, growling as he yanked the comb through two day old snarls.

"Gimme that," Sam muttered, taking the comb away, "before you go bald." Then he calmly and resolutely began to untangle Ed's wild mane, ignoring the younger man's occasionally snarl or gripe.

"So what are your plans?" Sam asked after a few moments of relative silence.

Ed, about the bitch a little more, sighed. "I dunno, Sam. I don't know what you expect me to do. Its… been to long; I did too much damage to him." Tears gathered in Ed's honeysuckle eyes. "I would give anything to turn back the hands of time. I would react so much differently."

"But that's impossible, Ed. You know there's no way to do that. I understand you feel at a loss; I can't even begin to imagine how you must feel right now. But tales of your exploits have spanned the globe. You never back down from a challenge. Try to look at it like that; a challenge. You've saved so many people… can you really give up before the fight's even begun… when it's Al?"

"I don't know what to do," Ed whispered, stricken to his core. "Tell me… tell me what I must do!"

"Oh, Ed, you know I can't do that. Even if I did have the answers, and I don't, this is something you have to figure out on your own. You know your brother. Why don't you just try… talking to him? You have to build a rapport with him once more, then see how it goes from there?"

Ed gave a pained smile, both from his heart and one last final tug on his hair. "For someone who tells me I have to figure this out on my own, you are sure full of advice."

Sam growled and went to slam the comb on the foot locker, when Ed turned and grabbed his hand. "But I'm grateful, Sam. For everything. More than you know."

Sam softened, then got down on one knee to look him in the eye, gripping his shoulders. "You can do this, Ed. You're the Fullmetal Alchemist. You can do anything.

Ed gave a choked cry, and fell into Sam's chest. "I'm afraid, Sam. I'm so scared."

Sam gently stroked silken smooth strands of gold hair, still damp. "I know, Ed. I know. But you have to try. You have to."

"I will."

Ed and Sam's little contretemps did not go unnoticed or uncommented on. The very few that did not hear them, were quickly informed by those that did. Gossip always ran rife through a camp, like a fire through straw. And very few of those that either heard or were informed were not amused.

Mustang, who felt rather sick to his stomach whenever he thought of Ed, grumbled something about Fullmetal never growing up.

Havoc had been fond of Ed, in a rather distant way; he never quite forgave the boy for his attack on the way to Resembool when the Elrics were in flight from the State, and definitely wasn't able to get over what he had done to Al. Havoc hid a secret tenderness in his heart for the youngest Elric; he'd been very fond of the boy whilst Al was imprisoned in steel, and had fallen very hard for the gorgeous boy Ed had brought back from the gate. Seeing what that tenderhearted soul and beautiful child had become horrified his loving heart, and felt he would hate Ed to the end of his days. Hearing such a brawl in the showers made him merely curl his lip, and silently think Mustang was too generous.

Armstrong, who suffered from an unaccustomed conflict of heart whenever he thought of Ed and Al to the point his customary sparkled dimmed, was torn between weeping tears of blood for the loss of the intense bond the pair once shared, and mooning over the resilience of the young, both with the tearing off of his shirt and flexing of his muscles.

As for Soul himself, no one saw any reaction from him. Those that were close to him but not actually present when the fracas occurred, would never bring up such a painful subject to him, and those callous enough to actually do such a thing never got close enough to him to mention it. But Al had heard, and he felt a dim echo of an ache in his heart, and a faint prickle in the back of his nose, both of which were quickly and ruthlessly slain before they ever showed on his placid face or in his empty eyes.

Besides, Soul was too busy to dwell upon any remnants of emotions wrung from a withered heart; unbeknownst to anyone save Mustang, he was still in possession of the fleeing Commander. That man had stumbled his way first through the wilds of Drachma, then through several border towns were he was finally given an escort to the capital to make his report. Thoughtlessly rifling through the man's mind, he learned enough to make the commander respond as he ought, and kept a tighter grip on that body the closer to the capitol and the farther away from Soul it got. Such distance made it harder to maintain control, and the commander was a willful man. Soul had taken to his tent, sitting on his cot, head in his hands as he continued his iron control. He had a job to do, and was unwilling to allow this godsend of a chance to slip through his fingers.

And now, the moment was at hand. The commander had made it to the capitol, and was presently before the Drachman Premier, glibly yet convincingly relating the mournful tale of the camps demise, the foul murder of not only the soldiers, but the camp doxy's and slaves. This latter part was a lie… Soul did not slay innocents. Despite all he had become, there was still enough compassion and honor within him to find such repugnant. No, Soul had likewise possessed them, but merely sent them away as quickly as possible, releasing them a few miles away with the compulsion to never return. Then Soul had the man embellish his tale, as the real man would have, with stories of treachery and infiltration en masse, being overwhelmed by impossible odds. The man was no more likely to tell his ruler that he was overcome by a single man, still yet a boy, than he was to stop breathing. But during his tale, he moved closer and closer to the Premier, spinning such a tale of horror and intrigue that the lord himself leaned closer, the better to hear, and thus was helpless to block the attack as Soul forced the commander to slip his bowie knife from its sheath and slit the Premier's throat from ear to ear, so suddenly and so thoroughly he almost decapitated the man. As those around began to scream and react, Soul released the commander, who staggered, and stared at what he had done in horror.

Back at the Amestrian base, Soul shuddered violently, and scrambled off his bed to heave the contents of his stomach into the trash can. Yes, Soul had killed hundreds, even thousands, but those had all been in the heat of battle. Never before had he ever engaged in assassination, and he knew he had just committed premeditated and cold blooded murder.

Mustang, ever on hand, ignored Soul's dictate of not touching, and gently rubbed the younger man's back as Al continued to vomit until he was choking up bile.

As soon as he was able, Soul sat back, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth and shrugging off Mustang's consoling touch. "It is done." He stated simply.

Mustang sat on the younger man's bed, and stared helplessly into eyes that were now a little emptier than ever before, and fought the urge to cry.


	8. Chapter 8

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, Roy

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 1,669  
**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **When pigs fly.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 8

Sam's idea of somehow retrieving Al's lost soul was definitely more easily said than done. Not only was Ed facing a monumental task, they still had house arrest to deal with, and from what Sam could glean from the guards, no one had seen hide nor hair of Soul since the return from the Drachman encampment.

But what Sam did learn, was that in the aftermath of said camp's destruction, Amestrian forces had gone out en masse and hunted down the few soldiers and camp associates that still lingered in the area. Those captured souls related a tale of horror, their eyes wide with shock, terrified at what they had seen… Some sort of mass hysteria gripping the camp, and the men slaying their own. As days melted into weeks, fewer and fewer were captured, and those that were told how rumors had spread even into the Capitol, where the Commander of the haunted post had assassinated the Premier, then committed suicide. Only those foolhardy, or pressured by their government dared set foot in that accursed region. And the fact that none ever returned only heightened the tales of murder and insanity.

Thus the Amestrian camp on that particular stretch of the Drachman border was swollen with forces no longer needed. Within a month, orders came down from the Fuhrer, who had by then returned to Central, and they began to be deployed elsewhere. Though Drachma was in shambles at the moment from the assassination of their leader, the second in command was holding on with an iron grip as factions scrambled around within the Capitol and major cities. Soul's attempt at ending the war apparently only gave them a breather.

As for Sam and Ed, they remained under house arrest for almost a month. Even Falkner could not be swayed to release them earlier. But it was hard on the two men. Sam feared that Mustang's regiment, and Soul, would be transferred away before they ever had a chance. But apparently Mustang was sitting tight, watching over his 'secret weapon', concerned enough to demand a break for the young man, and powerful enough with the Fuhrer to ensure the same. But even when they finally were released, with the admonishment to keep their noses clean lest both of them be court-martialed, there still was no sign of Soul. Mustang had meals fetched to the tent, and when Soul left to go to the showers or the latrine, he must have done so in the dead of night.

Then the unthinkable happened. Orders came from Central, recalling Mustang's regiment back to Central, for Soul to be deployed from there.

Sam, skulking about Mustang's tent, thus overheard much, just as he had when Falkner and Hakuro were arguing over whether or not to let Fullmetal die in captivity, drawn there by the sound of Lt. Havoc's angry voice.

"How can you sit there and let this happen," that man was shouting in fury. "They want Al to be retrained for assassination? No! You can't let that happen!"

"Do you think I like this?" Mustang ground out, the pain in his voice clear to Sam's ears. "What would you have me do? You are talking mutiny, Jean. Do you understand that? Mutiny!"

"I don't care!" Havoc was impassioned. "Enough of this! I'm sick of war! It's no better than when that damned homunculus Bradley was in power!"

"Calm yourself, Lt. Havoc," came the sonorous rumble of Armstrong's voice. "Fuhrer Hakuro is nothing like that traitor Bradley. You can hardly blame this war on him."

"Correct," Hawkeye's voice was crisp as always. "The Drachmen could not resist an attempt against the State in the chaos that followed Bradley's fall. If you must blame someone, Lieutenant, then blame them, not Hakuro. The Fuhrer is only doing what he must, and all of us, yes, even Al, are pawns in this game. We all knew what we signed up for; we all knew a time would come when any or all of us would be considered expendable for the greater good of our nation."

"Are you listening to yourselves?" Havoc snarled. "When will it be enough? Hawkeye, how many people did you kill while under Bradley's rule? And how many more have you killed since then? More, I know it! And you, Roy. What about Ishballa? What about the fight in Bradley's manor; when you cradled his dead son in your arms before you were shot by that lunatic Archer? And how many more have died by your hands since then?" Havoc paused, gasping for breath for a moment.

"When will it finally be enough? When will you both realize that the cost is becoming too high?" Havoc continued in a softer voice. "When? When you look into Al's eyes and see he's finally really dead inside? When there is nothing left of that boy we have all known and loved for so long? Then?"

There was a moment of shocked silence.

"Lt. Havoc," Soul finally spoke up, his voice calm and quiet and utterly devoid of any emotion. "Like Captain Hawkeye said, we knew what we were getting into. As for my reassignment, what does it matter? One assassination, ten, or a thousand? What does it matter? There is a war to be won, and the sooner the better. If I can end this conflict by killing a hundred souls, then I will. Then this will all be over, the State will be stronger than ever, and then you can all go home."

"'We' can all go home?" Havoc choked out. "What about you, Al? When can you go home?"

"The State is my home. This war is my home."

"No, Al, no…" Havoc was crying now. "I can't… I can't…. I can't do this anymore. I love you! I can't stand by and watch you die by inches every day, with every kill. I can't!"

"Jean," Mustang cried out softly, his voice stricken.

"Al, please, don't do this!" Havoc sobbed. "Please… Where are you? I look into your eyes, and I can't see you anymore. I… I miss you, Al. I… love you. Come back, from wherever you are… Come back!"

"This is what I am, Lt. Havoc." Soul's cool and collected voice said everything.

There was a scrambling sound, then the tent flap was thrown violently open and Havoc dashed out of tent, choking with grief, and vanished into night darkened collection of enlisted men's tents.

Sam was frozen in his spot, and heard the deafening silence that followed Havoc's retreat.

Finally, Mustang spoke, his voice strangely thick. "I think that is more than enough tonight. We will begin our preparations for departure the day after tomorrow. Dismissed."

Sam stayed where he was, and listened as everyone but Mustang and Soul quickly departed. Then, as he was about to retreat himself, he heard voices once more.

"Al, you don't have to do this. I will do anything, anything, to get you out of it." Mustang's voice was strained, close to tears himself.

"General Mustang, I say again, there is a war to be won. Both you and Lt. Havoc distress yourselves over nothing. This is what I am, and nothing and no one will ever change that. I have made my choice. I will live for the State, and I will die for the State. It's all I have left." Soul's voice was maddeningly unperturbed despite everything.

"You're wrong. You have us. You are loved, Alphonse. Dearly so. You have us, and so much more."

"Go to sleep, General Mustang. There is much to be done tomorrow if we leave on the next day." Soul's voice was closed and final.

And silence reigned as Sam crept away, feeling sick to the depths of his own soul.

Ed listened to Sam's tale of woe with an ashen face. Just when he began to have a kernel of hope, the State came along and dashed it all.

"Dammit all!" Sam swore, watching the flicker of hope dying in his friend's eyes. "What the hell are we going to do? We've been unable to get close to Al for over a week, and now he's going to leave? For that?" Sam collapsed onto the cot next to Ed, feeling the flags of righteousness fade away.

There was a long and stony silence, so thick and so lengthy that you could hear the faint tick of Ed's alchemist watch from his pocket.

Suddenly, Ed stood up, resolution in his eyes, cold, hard and bright. "I will not let this happen. I don't care if Al and I never resolve anything between us. I will not let the State kill him any more."

"I don't see how you're going to stop it," Sam said listlessly, staring up at the billows of dark green canvas overhead. "By dawn the entire regiment will be hip deep in preparations for the move to Central. Unless you plan to go AWOL again to follow them, I don't see how you'll even get within screaming distance of your brother. And if you do that, you're finished with the military."

"So what? I agree with Havoc. How much is enough?" Ed's voice was hard. "When Al and I were looking for the stone, all we wanted to do afterwards was settle back down in Resembool, away from the military and all it entails. Of course, I fucked that all up, but not this time. Not this time…." Ed began to pace feverishly, his eyes distant and unseeing.

Sam sat back up and watched Ed's relentless circling in the small space of their tent. He was itching to ask questions, but the way Fullmetal was pacing, chewing his lip and working his hands, the sniper knew the little alchemist was deep in the throes of inspiration.

After what seemed like an eternity, and Sam was ready to climb the wall in curious frustration, Ed whirled around, golden braid flying.

"Listen to me, Sam. This is what you must do…"


	9. Chapter 9

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, OC

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 2,009

**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **When pigs fly.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 9

Stennin Fortaine gripped the wrought iron balustrade and stared over the roofs of the city below. Smoke still rose lazily on the afternoon air. Most of the civil unrest has been put down by the Premier pro-tem, Alexes, and the chaos that followed the late premier's demise was mostly under control. But there was no satisfaction on Stennin's face. The eldest son of the late premier, he had just about grown up with Alexes, and viewed him rather like an uncle. And if anyone had to follow in his father's footsteps, and as Stennin himself was still too young to assume that mantle, there was no one else that he would rather follow as the new Lord of Drachma.

But he had had been standing at attention behind his father when the hapless commander of the western front had assassinated the leader of the land. Though enraged and horrified by his father's foul murder, he'd seen the commanders eyes, and _knew. _

A little less than a year before, Stennin had been on the front lines himself, and had the misfortune to come face to face with none other than the Soul Alchemist himself. Watching his own men turn on each other and had seen the hollow empty look in their eyes. The same look that was on the commander's face when he'd committed the highest act of treason against their land that any man or woman could. And then, when it was over, and life had come into the commander's eyes once more, and that man had looked around with horror at what he had wrought, Stennin knew.

Damn that foul boy as deadly as poison, as beautiful as an angel, and as deceptive as a lie. He was behind the death of Stennin's father. Soul was responsible for the chaos and mayhem that followed on the footsteps of his father's assassination.

And by everything that Stennin held dear, Soul would pay… with his heart's blood before he died.

Fall had arrived with a scream of wind and a bone chilling rain. The day in question was quite a shock after the almost balmy weather that had preceded it just 24 hours before. But such was the weather in that particular neck of Amestrian woods.

Sam swiped at a dripping nose as he loitered, once more, around Mustang's tent, waiting, waiting, waiting for someone to come or go so that he could deliver his 'distress' message, knowing that if no one could see or hear the Soul Alchemist as he skulked within it's canvas depths, that particular man could certain at least hear what was going on outside. And Sam knew instinctively that using the appellation of Fullmetal would ensnare that young man's attention like nothing else would. Alphonse Elric may be dead inside to all intents and purposes, but there was still enough of him left to drive him to his brother's side in time of duress.

But Sam had more than an hour more to wait before anyone came back to Mustang's tent. Obviously Soul himself was exempt from having to do anything to prepare for their imminent departure on the morn, but no one else was. Had Sam known that Al was alone in that tent for the almost three hours he'd been lurking, he would have gone in himself. But now the best possible candidate for Fullmetal's plan came his slow but thunderous way. Sam sniffed but grinned to see Armstrong strode single mindedly across his path. The man's booming voice and excitable personality was best for penetrating the tent and letting Soul hear what must be heard.

"Captain Armstrong!" Sam exclaimed as he burst onto the seen as if he'd been running up. He even panted appropriately. "Captain Armstrong! I must see General Mustang right away!"

Armstrong paused in his ponderous way and blinked a moment, placing the young man before him. Then his eyes twinkled gently. "Ah, Lt. Jansen, a pleasure to see you. How is Fullmetal? Fine I hope. Forgive me, young sir, but I simply do not have any time to spare right now, nor does his Generalship. I regret…"

Normally, Sam would die before rudely interrupting a superior officer, but this was falling nicely into his plans. "No, you don't understand, sir. Fullmetal went out to check on some suspicious activities, and he's missing, and…." Sam internally winced at how he forced a frantic and frightened tone into his voice. Such was not the young sniper's way at all, but it was cut through the much bigger man's politely worded rejection.

"What?" Armstrong thundered, and Sam was slightly soothed that he'd taken exactly the right note with him. "Fullmetal's missing? Again?"

Sam nodded vigorously. "Yes. He'd heard some distressing rumors about a renewed attack upon this base, and so went to investigate it. He was supposed to return and report hours ago, but he's not been seen or heard from since. I've scouted the area, and… and… all I found… was this…."

Silently, Sam brought out Ed's distinctive red coat, half shredded and stained with what looked like blood. His chin quivered convincingly. "Can't you help? Please! Ed's been my partner for years, and if something's happened to him again…." Sam turned away as if he could not go on.

"Ah! Our young friend is in Distress! We must go to his rescue! Such youth and bravery cannot go unprotected!" Armstrong flexed and his shirt leapt from his overly large but impressive physique almost with a will of its own, fluttering away in strangely attractive shreds. Sam struggled not to laugh, as it would blow everything to kingdom come. Ed had told him about this man, but it took seeing to really believing.

"Indeed!" The man went on loudly, "We…"

Hands suddenly took the coat from Sam's hand. Startled, the young man turned to behold Soul turning the clothing over in his hands, scrutinizing it carefully. Sam swallowed nervously as Armstrong's boisterous declarations faded away in the face of the younger man's appearance. Sam hoped their prop would pass muster. Soul, though young, was no fool.

Soul looked up and met Sam's eyes, and stared into them. Sam resisted the urge to swallow again, and felt as if he was physically and spiritual naked under Al's cold gaze.

"Take me to where this was found. Now." Was all he said, his voice almost glacial.

This time Sam was helpless against swallowing nervous, and discovered that his hands were shaking.

Ed stood beneath the low hanging boughs of an Aspen; it's gold and crimson leaves drenched and limp. Already many of them had fallen in the onslaught of the night stormed that had passed with the dawn. There was an almost unearthly stillness in the woods around him, the silence broken only by the relentless drip, drip, drip, of rainwater from overhead, filtered through the gaudy, but fading canopy above. He was watching the space slightly before him, waiting for Sam to lead his brother here. Oh, he'd planned this out most carefully. What he was about to do would not only end his career with the military, but could possible end up with imprisonment. Not that Ed cared. Neither he nor his brother would ever return to the military.

Focused intently on the carefully prepared glade ahead, and the path on the other side that led to the camp, and dwelling intensely on what he planned to do, he heard a rusting in the brush behind him, and felt the ice cold nudge of a gun barrel against the base of his skull once more.

But this time Ed wasn't emotionally overwrought and contemplating death. Not this time, and certainly not again. He ducked immediately, sweeping his metal leg out and around.

But his assailant was obviously prepared for some sort of reaction, and leapt lithely aside, and began to circle, the dark and deadly barrel of the large gun ever steady in the man's hand.

The man was tall, good looking, slightly older than Mustang, and dressed in somewhat travel stained Drachmen high command dress greens. Ed was astonished. From all he'd heard, most Drachmen would rather die than come here, but obviously this was no ordinary soldier, not dressed and skilled like that.

"Who the fuck are you?" Ed snarled, circling the man as well.

"Your brother's executioner," was the cold reply and mirthless smile. "And you're the bait that will bring him to me… Fullmetal Alchemist."

"Not this time, asshole," Ed snarled, leaping forward, clapping his hands. With the blue white crackle, his handblade slid free with a satisfying hiss.

Since the gun had been in the faint hope that the young alchemist could be easily subdued, Stennin, for that is who it was, deftly slid it back into his side holster, and nimbly slid out two long and lethally serrated hand blades of his own. Though not alchemically created or attached to his body, they were never the less deadly weapons, and he was exceedingly skilled in their use. He easily parried Ed's strike with the left blade, and slid the right across the younger man's side with the right.

But Ed had been in to many hand to hand combats, and he blocked that blade with his thick boot, flipping backwards, his flesh hand supporting his weight for a brief moment, his handblade glancing off the ornate hand guard of the other man's blade, and he bounced back upon his feet in a defensive crouch.

Stennin turned as fluidly, and landed deftly on his feet right in front of Ed once more. There were sparks and blade clashed against blade, and Ed's other hand slid under his short black jacket and yanked out his own dagger, shorter and plainer than the Drachman's, and parried the other viciously wielded blade. More sparks.

It was as smooth as a choreographed dance, elegant in their simplistic but effective moves and countermoves, the clanging and grinding of metal and the softer, meatier sounds of flesh striking flesh almost musical in their skill and determination.

Ed began to get nervous. The fight was leading him farther and farther away from where his brother would come, unknowing of this Drachman's treacherous plans. Nor could he land a real strike on this man. For the first time since the fight began, he began to doubt himself. But no. By the man's own words, Ed was the only thing standing between Al and death. It wasn't as if he doubted that Al couldn't protect himself in the event Ed fell, but if the young blond had his way, Al would never, ever kill again. Not for hire, not under orders, not in self defense. Not if he, the Fullmetal Alchemist, had anything to say about it.

Ed danced away from yet another blow, feet sliding in the slimy rain wet fallen leaves, and he used that misstep to his advantage. He ducked under Stennin's second strike, shoving his dagger's hilt between his teeth, retracting his handblade. The flash from that led directly into the next alchemic reaction as he clapped his hands again. Several large and deadly stone spike shot up from the ground under the Drachman's feet.

He swore as the older man leapt up and away.

"Well done, Fullmetal," Stennin smirked. "But not good enough. This ends here." The man shoved both blades away, his hand moving under his coat.

"We'll see about that, fucker," Ed snarled. Another crackle and with the grace and skill of years, he pulled his beautifully lethal lance from the moist soil at his feet.

"Oh yes, we'll see…"

Ed looked up in time to see Stennin holding a little grey bag in one hand, the other held flat out in front of the man's face, fingers out. A quick blow, and Ed blinked, gritting dust clouding his vision, acrid upon his lips, and thick and cloying in his nose. Whatever it was, it acted quickly, and before he knew it, Ed was falling, his vision dimming.

_Shit… not again, dammit…. Al…._


	10. Chapter 10

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, OC

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 1,591

**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **When pigs fly.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 10

As carefully as Soul had examined Ed's coat, his scrutiny of the carefully contrived scene in the glade was even more intense. Though Armstrong and blustered and objected, Soul had been adamant about following Sam to the 'scene of the crime' and going alone. Armstrong had naturally rushed off to inform Mustang of these latest developments, and Soul had followed Sam to this distant little rain wet and rapidly darkening dell.

Sam was shifting nervously as Soul moved slowly about the little space, growing increasingly apprehensive with every passing moment. Where was Ed? This was a critical part of their plan! The longer Al was able to look around, the more likely he was to realize exactly how fake this all was.

Soul gave a small and uncharacteristic sigh as he straightened up and leveled a cold look at Sam. "Why don't you tell me why I'm _really _here, Samson Jansen?" His voice was forbidding. "I don't like this little game you're playing."

Sam's heart leapt straight into his throat at the look and tone he was receiving from the Soul Alchemist. Yes, Al was still in possession of a soft spot, however dim it might be, for Ed, but that did not include Sam. "I… I don't know what you're talking about." His voice was feeble and unconvincing.

There merest hint of a frown wrinkled Soul's smooth brow. "Do you take me for a fool?" That cold and emotionless voice dropped to an icy note. "Enough. I knew the second I heard your voice outside my tent that you were up to no good. Your little scenario here is quite impressive, but I am undeceived. Why am I here? Answer swiftly. My patience is wearing thin."

Sam realized the jig was up, and the glacial look in Soul's eyes scared the living shit out of him. He could only stammer and stutter in fright, silently cursing Ed. Where the fuck was he? Soul was going to kill him he just knew it, he just…

The older man suddenly grew stock still, eyes growing dim and vague, and he was internally screaming. There was a white hot touch on his hand, and he felt the suddenly smothering presence of another in his mind. Even as he mentally struggled, pain sparking along every never in his body, he wondered exactly when Al had touched him. He moved so fast…

There was a momentary silence as the two stood close together in an eerie tableau, Soul's ungloved hand lightly touching the other's. Then with a moue of disgust, Soul stepped back, hand dropping to his side.

Sam dropped to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut, and writhed on the ground. The pulsing beats of unimaginable pain had stopped immediately when Soul released his mind, leaving behind a bone deep ache like he'd been beaten soundly. Nausea rose in a relentless tide, and Sam rolled over just in time to vomit violently, gagging and retching until nothing was left but a vile tasting, evil smelling bile. Quivering like a palsied old man, Sam rolled to the side so as not to fall face first into his own spew and looked helplessly up at Soul standing over him. Backlit by the stormy looking sky drifting dimly through the leaves overhead, the younger man was a sinister shadow looming over Sam, and the sniper wondered vaguely if he would die now.

"You are a hopeless romantic, Lt. Jansen," Soul's derisive voice filtered down dimly. "And a fool to boot. You butt in where you're not wanted, and interfere where you're not welcome. So… Where's Fullmetal, since the two of you went to such great trouble to lure me here with your foolishness?"

The shuddering was slowly leaving Sam's body, and his vision began to steady, the sickness gradually ebbing. "Don't… know… Was supposed… to be… here… Don't know…" Sam struggled to collect himself, revolted and horrified that his entire life, his very soul had been laid bare to this frightening young man. Alphonse Elric now knew his deepest darkest fears, the shameful little secrets every one hid in the dark recesses of their mind, each fanciful daydream, every waking dream he'd ever had in his life. Little incidences he'd so long forgotten about were fresh and vivid in his mind. He wanted to puke again.

"Che." Soul snorted in disdain. He ignored the other man, and cold eyes slowly scanned the grayed circle of trees in the half light, nostrils flaring delicately. He could smell Fullmetal's scent; faint and fading, rain wet wood and leaf, violently disturbed earth, the acrid odor of stone unfamiliar with this region, and the scent of a total stranger. And violence. He could literally smell the stench of aggression, fear, evil triumph and his brother's blood.

Vision telescoped to a pinpoint, hearing tuned out the normal sounds of rain, night and the noise of a wood, and focused on the faint echo of a struggle, his very spirit focused like a needle to the very spot where all these sensations originated, sensations very much out of place in this particular spot of the world. There was a throb deep inside his breast, a teasing emotion he was unaccustomed to having, but had had far too much of lately.

_Niisan!_

Clods of wet dirt and grass shot from under his feet when Soul began to move with demonic speed, shooting across the little clearing and slicing right through the bushes and brushes in a straight line for the source of his unease.

Unbeknownst to the younger man, his thought was vocalized, and the sudden agony in that soft word, the unearthly lunge, the man's form vanishing from sight with frightening suddenness, brought Sam back to his senses like nothing else. If the Soul Alchemist reacted so negatively and emotionally to something unsensed to the older man, then things had taken a very bad turn.

It took several minutes for Sam to get to his feet and stagger along the same flight path Soul had taken, the trail clear with broken branches and disturbed soil.

Soul could move like a shadow in the night, leaving no sign of his passing, but such things were too trivial to contemplate and he brought himself in the blink of an eye to a spot where a real scuffle had taken place. He slowed his pace, taking in every hint, no matter how miniscule, of where his brother might be now, and followed the obvious signs of battle to its place of culmination.

That was were Sam finally found him, staring down with once more inscrutable eyes at a small dagger laying in the disturbed soil, and the most beautiful crafted lance Sam had ever seen, and the older man shivered in the growing dusk. Both weapons were as familiar to him as his own. They were Ed's, and that man would no more leave them lying around then he would run naked through the streets of Central. This was very bad. Very bad indeed.

Hearing the rustle of Sam's arrival, Soul looked up, and once again Sam felt fear infiltrate his very being. Soul's eyes were far from emotionless. And that scared him more than anything. Then suddenly there was a cracking pain in his jaw and he was flying backwards, to fetch abruptly and painfully against the bole of a tree, and he slithered to the ground in a daze.

"You goddamned fool!" Al screamed, eyes filled with rage, fist still knotted white to the knuckles from his blow. "Do you realize what you've done? You've led Niisan into a trap!" Then he gasped, struggled, and his cold demeanor dropped back over him like a cloak. Now was not the time to fall apart.

When Soul had learned about Fullmetal's abduction several weeks before, he'd felt a frission of unease. An uncomfortable feeling that had grown with every passing moment, though he hid it so carefully it was as if it never existed. But this time… There was something so menacing, so evil about whomever had taken his brother, that Al felt physically ill. It was a palpable miasma that hung over everything like a black and toxic cloud, and his sudden unreasoning fear was destroying the calm and icy façade that had become like a second skin to him over the last three years. If…if… Niisan… if….

Sam got shakily back to his feet, and watched the Soul Alchemist unraveling before his very eyes. The younger man's cold persona flickered in and out with an emotional young man's terror like the blinking of a strobe light. As scary as Soul could be, watching this vacillation between man and machine was even more horrifying.

With a jerk so sudden and complete it almost made an audible click, Alphonse Elric was gone, and the Soul Alchemist was firmly in control.

"Get up," he stated icily, hating this man before him with every fiber of his being for witnessing the flickers of humanity Soul would rather submit to the coldest depths of hell than acknowledge. "We have a job to do."

Without waiting to see if Sam would obey, for the younger man knew he would, Soul turned and began to run in an unerring line through the woods as if he knew where he was going. Soul was following a faint physical and sickeningly strong psychic trail that would lead him to what he hoped wouldn't be his greatest fear. He had to find Fullmetal. And find him now.


	11. Chapter 11

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, OC

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 2,509

**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **When pigs fly.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 11

The farther away that Soul moved from the camp, and the closer he moved toward his unseen target, the more inhumane he seemed to become. He flowed around trees, over rocks and streams like an unearthly shadow from hell, moving more silently, and more quickly than could possibly believed. Sam was at first hard pressed to keep up, and then it simply became a matter of following an invisible trail. It made the sniper shudder, knowing Soul was too skilled to leave any trace, thus his ability to follow the younger man had to be caused by some remnant of the alchemist still in his own soul. Likewise, it lent speed to his feet, and stealth to his passing, though Sam would never, ever, not in this lifetime or any other, become as good as the invisible menace he followed helplessly.

The path, less than a deer trail, became steeper, and they soon left the forest behind, the shrubbery becoming coarse and dense, stunted by the frequent winds that blasted the rocky knobs of the foothills leading to the arid and dry ramparts of a unique and solitary spike of stone that towered over the landscape, unseen from the camp because of the forest, but known about nevertheless. Soul made a sour moue; it was called the Finger of Satan in polite circles, and far more crude among the military. Somehow it was fitting that this battle would take place at the lofty summit of such a place.

Sam was not as sanguine as his far ahead companion. Whomever had taken Ed would surely not give him up without a fight, and though Sam was not exactly completely confident of his own skill in the face of this unknown danger, he was about Soul. However, he knew it wouldn't be pretty, and he feared he would only be in the way, and with the ravaging gusts of wind that whipped the stony outcropping, he feared he would be so hard pressed to maintain his own footing here that he would be less than useful in any battle.

He was gasping now. It was no longer a case of running up a steep and rocky hill, but had become a full hand over hand climb up a steep precipice. But thanks to whatever Soul had left behind within him, his hands always found a firm grasp, and his feet never faltered or slipped. Muscles began to ache, then to sting, then to cramp brutally, but he was helpless to stop climbing, to cease reaching for the next hand hold, the next knob to push up from. Moisture gathered in his eyes from the pain and exertion, quickly dried by the arid wind that was rising steadily with every foot gained upwards. A soft susurrus soon became a whistled and whined and then climbed to a near deafening shriek. Sobbing helplessly as he obeyed forces he could no longer understand, he dimly realized that he was now in uncharted territory, both spiritually and physically; Sam had never heard of anyone actually conquering the winds and treacherous stone to actually reach the pinnacle of the Devil's Cock.

But obviously someone had. Ed was up there. Ed and his captor. Sam bit his lip hard and focused on the endless climb and tried to hold that in his mind. They were going to Ed. Soul was reaching for his brother. This very night the division between Al and Soul, man and machine would be decided. One or the other would come through the whatever lay before them. And Sam was so very afraid which one it would be.

Just when the older man had become convinced that he'd slipped into some hellish hole in time and space and would spend eternity in his endless and painful ascent, a hand grabbed the back of his coat and jerked him up. He clenched his teeth in a valiant effort to stem the scream of pain induced by knotting and spasming muscles now that they were not longer needed.

Soul stood there, watching impassively as Sam flexed his hands and feet, rising to the balls of his feet, then rocking back to his heels to relax overtaxed limbs.

_You know what you must do._

Sam looked sharply at the other man, whose lips never moved, but whose voice cut through his inner ear so clearing. Images flickered across his inner eye so quickly he couldn't catch them. Then Soul once more grabbed the back of his jacket, and with a muted flash of light, Sam was sailing up and over the last knob between them and what even he could now sense was waiting for them.

_Protect Niisan at all costs…_

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Sam continued to fly up, feeling a subtle push against the soles of his feet, spinning him slowly as he cleared the rim, rolling head over heels to land lightly upon the balls of his feet at very apex. Even as he lit on the pocked and wind blasted ground, his arms were crossing before him. Sam didn't have his trusty rifle, but he was never without his guns. They came out of their holsters with familiar and comforting ease, even as he took in the scene that lay before him and took aim.

Ed was shacked hand to foot, both sides, making it impossible for him to call upon any alchemy. His eyes blazed with wrath over the blood stained gag tightly wound around his head, golden hair loose and in tangled disarray. A split second later, Sam took in their adversary. He was tall, rather distinguished looking with faint white wings at his temples, his face weathered yet attractive, the rumpled uniform declaring him as a two star general in the Drachmen army. Knife hilts peeked out if his belt at his sides, two gun holsters were strapped to his thighs, and several utilitarian pockets bulged.

Even as Sam's guns came up with skilled alacrity, the enemy was pulling the smaller alchemist off the ground and using him as a human shield.

But Sam was a prodigy in his own field, as Al and Ed were in theirs, and this unknown Drachman was in his, and without hesitation, he adjusted his aim slightly, and fired.

The Drachman staggered back as the bullet ripped through the cuff of his sleeve, scoring a deep gouge in the back of his hand, and Sam scowled at that. But the second bullet went true, neatly bisecting the links of the cuffs between Ed's automail hand and foot.

Ed's automail grasped the other cuff and crushed the links, which gave way with an almost imperceptible shriek of metal on metal, and he fell away ungracefully, but it was unnecessary.

Sam flew up, landed and shot, all in the blink of an eye, but already Soul was rising behind him like a dark avenger. His shadow passed briefly over the older man as he took his rightful place between his comrades and his prey.

And in that moment, the Drachman smiled evilly, and stepped away from the pawns, now that the king lay within reach. The pouch was out again and the dust that had been so effective was flying towards Soul in a brief lull of gusts. But Al crossed his wrists before his face, and the dust hit some sort of shield that glowed a soft blue for the briefest of moments as the gentle but deadly attack was repelled.

"You'll have to do better than that, Stennin Fortaine," Soul said in a coldly amused voice, almost lost in another sudden screaming gust of wind.

"I'm touched. You remember." If Stennin was dismayed at the failure, he didn't show it. If anything his feral grin grew wider.

"I never forget. Not a face, and certainly not an attack. There is nothing you can do that I haven't already seen. Or did you forget?" Soul's derisive laugh was almost musical.

Unknown to anyone but the two of them, in that skirmish a year ago, Soul had briefly possessed Stennin's body, but a lucky attack by an Amestrian foot soldier had knocked him out at the exact moment Soul took over, and his psychic touch had slid off like water off a duck's back. To date, he was the only man to ever escape Soul's control, much less survive.

"That was then, and this is now." Even as the two exchanged these comments, they were at each other, and once again, it was an elegant dance of warfare; Al moving and weaving like a willow in the wind, trying to land a touch upon the much older man, who repelled each one with the hilts of his knives that had come out the moment they greeted each other. Stennin had not yet flipped them around to use the blades; he wanted this to last.

Meanwhile, Sam had reached Ed and ran his hands over the smaller man's body, checking for injuries. Though bruised and battered, the sniper felt no broken bones or hard swellings denoting internal injuries. A knife gleamed for a second, and Ed's gag was cut away.

But Ed wasn't reacting as he ought, Sam thought distantly as he tried to divide his attention between his charge and the fierce battle. Why wasn't Ed getting up and going to assist his brother? Why wasn't he screaming in rage over the Drachman's manhandling? Why did he lay in the circle of Sam's arms and tremble like a leaf in the wind?

But Soul and Stennin were still locked in mortal combat, exchanging unreasonably civil yet scathing insults as they continued their dance of barely averted death. It appeared that they were somehow evenly matched, and Stennin began to get frustrated. Soul was too cool in the face of this battle. He'd counted on the boy being more emotional over his captive brother, but he'd misjudged him greatly. Well, there was more than one way to skin a cat.

With a fantastic kick, his foot struck Soul's forearm, and he pushed away, doing a backflip, right for Sam and Ed.

Dismissing Ed's uncharacteristic behavior, Sam rose up, shoving the other behind him, and met the Drachmen head on, fully expecting to die. If Soul couldn't land a blow on the enemy, what chance did he have? But perhaps his actions would give the younger Elric an opening.

With the ease and disregard one would swat a fly with, Stennin's hard and brutal fist casually knocked Sam aside, who flew into a curving spume of ancient stone, which knocked him senseless even as it saved him from falling off the summit to a horrible death.

Even as Sam moaned weakly and slid to his side, Soul was there, and caught the Drachman in a mighty kick of his own. Stennin absorbed it with crossed forearms and somersaulted gracefully to land on his feet once more, several feet away. Once more the two engaged in hand to hand combat.

Ed suddenly gave a choking cry, and fell on his face, shuddering. It was the opening Stennin needed. His knife hilt caught Soul in the gut, and Al went flying backwards, feet scrabbling desperately against the gritty soil in and effort to keep from sailing right off the edge of the precipice.

With a mocking smile, Stennin turned, flipped the offending knife over in his hand and threw it with unerring accuracy at the prone Fullmetal Alchemist.

Soul gave a sharp grunt, caught his footing, dug his toes in, and with shocking speed, intercepted the deadly missile… with his breast. He gave an odd melancholy cough, and fell to his knees.

Stennin laughed harshly. "I win, Soul Alchemist. I always win. Do you think you've saved your worthless brother? Hardly." Still chuckling darkly as he paced slowly and deliberately towards the two stricken young men, he fingered his other blade with gleeful anticipation. "I always win, one way or another."

Even as Soul reached out with a trembling hand to touch the other man, Stenning casually avoided that hand and kicked the younger man viciously in the side, rolling Soul over and away twice with the force.

"Look," Stennin crowed victoriously, his handsome face twisted in ugly triumph, as he seized Ed's long tangled locks and jerked his head up. "Even if you'd beaten me, unlikely, I sill would have won. Look and weep."

Ed's bruised and battered face was streaked with blood and tears. A thick trail of brood streamed from both nostrils. The tears increased as he beheld his beloved little brother laying several feet away, pale as death, blood upon his lips as a wicked serrated blade lay half buried in his chest, a widening pool of blood growing around that slender body.

"Al…." Those pallid lips opened, and a horrendous gush of dark blood overflowed, choking the older boy even as he whimpered his brother's name in a stricken voice.

"You see?" Stennin sang out happily. "He's already dying. In fact, he was already dead the moment you reached us. It's a potent, virulent poison that liquefies from the inside out. In a few minutes, ten at the most, your brother will be dead, and I won't even have to touch him." He dropped Ed's head with a thump and chortled, and fingered his blade contentedly. "But I will touch him. You're dying too, my boy. But before you go, I'm going to gut your brother like a steer on a hook. As you die, you will watch me pull whatever is left of Fullmetal's innards out like prime cuts of beef. So watch, pet, and know that I have won. I have won."

Both boys watched the man helplessly, tears streaking their faces. If only they could go out together, hands linked, fingers entwined. If only they could meet eternity together with their arms tightly around each other.

"Niisan…" Al whispered forlornly, lungs rattling as he slowly drowned in his own blood. One quivering hand crawled across the dusty ground in a vain attempt to reach his brother. Ed likewise slid a weak hand outwards, but they were too far apart to ever touch each other again.

_I love you. _Eyes transmitted this all important message back and forth, glowingly.

Stennin threw back his head and laughed lustily. "Yes, my pets, now you die… apart." Once more that large and capable hand seized Ed's hair. But even as the blade turned towards the younger man, glinting evilly in the moonlight, there was a loud report, and Stennin jerked back, eyes wide with shock. His head slowly fell forward, to stare dumbly at a spreading stain across his breast. There was another report, and that handsome and bewildered head exploded in a hail of gore and blood. Almost headless, the corpse swayed once, twice, and then fell to the side.

Standing there, both hands firmly knotted on one of his guns, was Sam, tears leaving white streaks down his dirty cheeks, as uncaring moon shown down from above.


	12. Chapter 12

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, OC

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Angst, slight incest, slight yaoi, attempted suicide, violence

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 1,648

**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **When pigs fly.

**Summary:** Alphonse Elric was dead, Ed had killed him, and from the bitter ashes of that crime, the killing machine known as the Soul Alchemist had been born. The Soul Alchemist; Amestris' deadly secret weapon of war. Alphonse Elric.

**Note: **This chapter is dedicated to Cold Drake Queen, without whose inspiration I would never have been able to get this far, but would have remained stalled out, several chapters ago. Thank you honey!

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 12

It was the darkest part of the night; that ghostly eerie pit long past midnight, when all is still, and it seems as if morning will never come again. The moon was so bright it was as if floodlights lit the world, giving everything a strange incandescence. The gusts had died back as if they'd never existed. Everything was hushed, watching the passing of something extraordinary.

Sam dropped the still smoking gun, sobs tearing from his throat as he watched the whole world die in front of him, seeping the coppery stench of blood. He fell heavily to his knees between the Elrics, shaking hands, broken wrist unnoticed save for a twinge, turning Edward over. The brilliance of the moon clearly illuminated the fall of blood as black as poison over his chin, glistening on his black jacket and staining the white piping.

"Ed," he choked.

But Ed wasn't paying any attention to him. The end was very near for him. His fingers slid through the dust, still trying to reach his brother. "Al… Al…"

Knowing there was nothing he could do, Sam bent his head and wept hopelessly.

"Sam…"

Having almost forgotten that Soul was still there in his grief for a man that had become like a brother to him, Sam's head jerked to see Al staring at him, eyes glistening in the moonlight. He wasn't trying to reach his brother anymore; instead his hand was fumbling weakly at a pouch on his hips. He coughed, tiny dots of black blood spattering the stony ground below his mouth. "Bring... him… to me… please…"

Feeling the rightness that the brothers die together, Sam groaned in pain when he lifted Ed, and drug him dizzily towards his brother. The fractured wrist, garnered in his slamming into the stone that saved his life, gave an audible snap, and Ed slithered from his hands to lie before his brother. They lay together in almost a circle, facing each other foot to head. Ed's hand once more began the laborious dusty trek towards his brother.

Al gave a frustrated cry, too weak to even unsnap the pouch. "On… on my hip… Get it for me." Soul couldn't use the part of himself he left in the sniper to direct the older man. All his energies were dovetailed into staying alive long enough to do what must be done; what he'd been preparing for since he enlisted with the military.

Cradling his broken wrist against his chest, Sam's fingers slid under the coarse and stiff denim flap of the shaped pouch, and closed over something as smooth as polished glass, yet strangely warm, as if from Al's body heat.

Despite the brightness of the moon above, it was as if a small sunrise lit Al's hip, as Sam drew out a stone the size of a goose egg, that pulsed with a scarlet light, and was mottled with shifting darkness, like streamers of clouds across its slick surface. It lit the summit of stone with a wash of crimson, chasing away the knife bright shadows of the moon above in a soft rosy glow.

"The Philosopher's stone…" Al panted, a strange smile gracing blood stained lips. "I made it just for something like this. Every kill, every death, I used to strengthen its power. It had to stand for something, right?" Al grimaced, more blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. "I couldn't have it all be senseless, could I? I had to make everything I did count… had to… for _him…_"

Sam shuddered, his skin crawling as he realized what glowed like fresh blood in his hand; the hundreds, no thousands of souls the Soul Alchemist had claimed every time he stepped out in battle. Ruby tinted tears glowed on his cheeks. "I… I can't use it. I'm no alchemist."

Again that melancholy smile. "I know, Sam. Give it to me... Mine will be the last sacrifice to power it, and my brother will again be whole. Give it to me..."

"No!" Sharp, short, bubbly yet furious…

Both men jerked to stare at Ed, who'd found the wherewithal to lift his head. His eyes speared Sam to the ground like a butterfly under a pin. "Give... it to… me… There's no point… to the world… going on… without Al… Give it… to me… Sam…"

Sam sat back on his haunches, clutching the horrid stone to his chest, sobbing once more. Why should he have to make such a choice? He was only a man, one who'd trespassed on godly grounds, yes, but he never asked to be here, to be forced to make such a hideous choice. And what did it all matter anyway? Whomever he gave the stone to would die in the conflagration of power the stone would unleash, and the other that survived would be condemned to life in a world without the other. He'd learned enough from Ed over the years to know that Ed would not want to live on in such a world. Likewise, if Ed used the stone, it would be to condemn Al to the machine that lay in psychic shards around the younger Elric. Right now, it was all Al; warm, loving, _alive._

While Sam was arguing with himself, fingers crawled through the dust towards each other once more, and found what they sought. At last! Hands met, fingers entwined, a palm to palm embrace. Sam lowered his streaming eyes, beheld this and made the only choice open to him. He slid the stone between their linked hands.

The red light was snuffed out of existence, and with a faint tching sound, a massive transmutation circle sprang up in lines of brilliant blue, covering the entire summit and even wrapping around and down the rocky sides of the massive spire for several feet. The moment the stone touched the two Elric's hands, alchemy flowed like water. A shockwave visibly blew out, knocking Sam back a foot or two. The blazing light was blinding, making the moon overhead sickly and pallid in comparison.

Sam groveled in the gritty dirt as streamers of light whispered and hummed past him, spiraling forever out, like the arms of a galaxy. The sight was so beautiful he forgot the agony screaming up from his wrist as he clutched desperately to whatever he could find to keep from spilling off in the furious alchemic winds scouring the plateau.

In the center of this fury the forms of the two Elric brothers could be seen, glowing in sharp relief against the ghostly blue white lights spinning around them like celestial dust. They both sat up slowly, still linked together by their hands, a tiny red glow like a hidden sun between them. They were moving gradually upwards, and as their feet left the ground, they too began to rotate like the winds around them. One linked hand became two, the glimmering stone now hovering between them at heart level. A faint chaotic thumping could be heard, like that of several hearts beating in disharmony, but the beats steadied slowly into two, then the two became one, that soft gentle sound beating in time to the slow pulsations of the Philosopher's Stone.

Sam was overwhelmed. He was witnessing something no one had ever seen before, and likely never would again. He was crying like a baby, the beauty before him piercing his heart with sweetness mingled with sadness. Would the two brighten until they were no more?

Ed and Al's eyes were locked together as tightly as their hands were. Sparkles and flashes of lights danced around them as they slowly spun in the alchemic storm raging around them. Everything but themselves was consumed; their clothes, their weapons, even the blood soaking the ground was picked up and joined in swirling winds. The boy's hair streamed in the currants as if with a life of their own, as they drew closer and closer together. Their hands parted to wrap around each other's body, a tight embrace too long denied. Lips met, hearts beat as one. Finally.

_I love you!_

Even Sam could hear that commingled psychic cry from two aching and healing hearts. The two boys' souls were laid bare to each other; every thought, every deed, every regret clearly seen, and just as clearly accepted without reserve or recrimination.

The winds began to die back, the light to ebb. Sam slowly got to his feet, watching enthralled, never noticing the fading burn in his wrist, or the reknitting of a couple of long ago broken bones in his body, or the fact that his clothing and weaponry, yea, even the body of Stennin himself had gone into that alchemic reaction. He could only weep softly as he watched the two rotating boys slowly sink to the ground, bare toes touching the ground. There was a physical jar as they settled fully to the earth, then the wind and glimmering light were gone, a small jingle as dull red shards fell to the ground at their feet. The stone was spent.

Sam dashed the tears from his eyes, hope swelling anew in his body as he beheld the brothers, washed in a kinder and gentler moonlight than before, embracing each other tightly, lips locked together in a passionate kiss. He took one awestruck, hesitant step forward.

The kiss ended moistly, and the two brothers smiled shyly at each other. Then their eyes closed in unison, and Sam sprang forward, in time to catch them before they hit the ground, heart thundering fearfully in his chest.

But the brothers lay sleeping, still tightly wrapped in each other arms, and Sam sat back on his haunches, drug a wearied hand across wet cheeks, gave a choked sob of joy, and curled his bare body tightly around both of their protectively, as he too succumbed to exhaustion.


	13. Chapter 13

**Fandom:** FMA  
**Title: **Phoenix Rising  
**Characters:** Ed, Al, OC

**Pairings:** Elricest  
**Rating:** R  
**Warnings:** Incest, slight yaoi

**Author's Notes:** AU

**Word Count:** 4,088

**Status:** Incomplete  
**Disclaimer: **When pigs fly.

**Summary:** Like a phoenix rising from the ashes of destruction, so Alphonse Elric rose from the ruins of his soul and found the will to live and love again.

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 13

The camp below was in chaos, and had been for hours. Armstrong had delivered his tale of stubborn woe, and the entirety of all units still present had been scrambled to find and retrieve the two recalcitrant alchemists and the single sniper. The forest for miles around had been carefully combed in the harsh glow of carbon lamps, but all that was found was the two scuffled clearings, and Ed's dagger and lance, and of course, the incriminating red coat.

Back at base, Mustang paced relentlessly, torn between fierce rage and debilitating fear. When he got his hands on Ed and Sam, there would be hell to pay. Oh yes. Both boys would cower before his righteous wrath. Unable to help himself, he climbed the sturdy rope ladder into the watchtower. Comprising of many levels from which to watch out for enemy, it's crown was a proud spire above the dense canopy of the forest below, the vivid green banner emblazoned with the white Amestrian lion flapping noisily above in the night wind. Occasionally, he would use the powerful night vision goggles used by the sentries, scanning the dark blur of night darkened forest below, searching for the heat signs of the missing soldiers, growling softly when all he could spot was the signatures of his own men searching for them.

It came on the back of a faint susurrus of wind, that ominous prickling on the back of his neck. Something was wrong… he could feel it in his bones, taste it on the night air, hear it in the low sounds of a forest at night. The fine hairs on his arms rose, and a chill crawled up his spine. He was already turning when the surprised call of the sentry on duty demanded his attention.

Eyes were drawn inexorably up to the peak of the Devil's Cock, inky black against the star spattered and moon blasted sky. A blue halo encircled the crown of that unholy jut of stone from the forest floor. With eyes as dark as the night itself, Mustang felt that crawling dread turn to full blown, bone chilling fear as what could only be an array sprang into life, of unimaginable breadth and power, etching its forboding blue lines down the very sides of the rocky spire.

Twice before, he'd seen such a thing; the first time was standing on a rain drenched grassy bluff, on a night very different from this one, and saw that accursed blue blaze spring from every window of a quaint farmhouse in a tiny little town far away from the hustle and bustle of Central and all it stood for. The alchemy fury of that reaction had been astounding, but nothing compared to the second time; in Roy Mustang's own living room where he'd watched a cocky young blond alchemist wield a blood red stone and drag a long missing and much beloved soul back from the sinister clutches of an enigmatic gate. That alchemic storm had been unlike any he'd seen before. Not surprising. Fullmetal had always been a prodigy, and with his already unimaginable skills and talents enhanced by the philosopher's stone, and by sheer willpower, Ed had pulled off that which everyone had said was impossible. Then the blue glare had faded away, leaving Mustang crouching shocked and dazed at the edge of a smoking transmutation circle, in the center of which was the most beautiful creation he'd ever seen.

All things being equal, despite what Ed's alchemy had wrought, and it's stunning end result, Mustang had hoped to never, ever see such a display again. Thus, seeing it now, at the edge of home, on the peak from hell, he knew it portended disaster of unimaginable proportions. And this display but the other two's to shame. That circle had to be more than a mile in diameter, were it on the ground. Already the furious alchemic winds were arriving, the hot and metallic scent blasted down the prominence of stone and hurled itself over the unsuspecting forest below; ripping leaves from trees, sending the denizens of the wood scurrying for cover, and causing the watchtower to sway and creak alarmingly.

Mustang gripped the wooden railing with both hands, refusing to bend before the force of that which he dreaded more than anything. Eyes smarting, he stared into the teeth of the gale, and never let his eyes stray from the blinding blue white spiral of white light spinning in an ever-widening circle about the summit before him. And so he did not miss the flaring light curl tightly back in on itself, and suck back up into the hellish vortex, or the sudden groan of earth in protest, shuddering for an endless moment. Mustang watched heaven and hell meet on that crude peak and ignored the shouts of alarm from the men below him when the ground rocked violently.

As suddenly as it began, it was over. The light winked out of existence between one heartbeat and the next, as did the wind, leaving a deathly still world behind, spellbound and shocked by what it could never comprehend. Mustang swallowed dryly, and then was bellowing orders even before he forced his fingers to relax their death grip on the wood railing.

……………………………..

To Mustang's furious frustration, it was more than an hour before the small phalanx of hot air balloons reached the site of the reaction. It would take hours for soldiers to laboriously climb to that inhospitable region, and Mustang did not have hours. The four balloons loosely encircled the peak, the harsh glare of searchlights converging from the points of the compass to reveal the contents of the summit. Mustang swore viciously to see that which he dreaded; the form of three young men curled into each other tightly, bare limbs throwing back the light with almost eerie luminescence.

Even before the others could ensure the area was safe, Mustang was jerking the guide ropes and ordering landing. He knew nothing could have survived that alchemic fury. And his eyes smarted as he ignored Armstrong's stenorious cries and walked on rubbery legs to the tangle of limbs before him.

His eyes took in the scene at his feet; Ed and Al were wrapped around each other like vines, and Sam curled around the both of them like a sheath. Eyes watering, fingers trembling, the general knelt slowly, and slid his fingers along the moonlit curve of Al's shoulder, pressing in gently on the velvety column of his throat.

"He's alive! Get over here with those blankets! They're all alive. Let's get them out of here." Quickly Mustang stood after feeling all three faint but even pulses. Silent silver tears coursed down his face as he was consumed with the most devout relief he'd ever felt in his life. When he'd seen them, naked and vulnerable and still on the wind blasted stone, he'd felt sure there would be no life within them. But as he pulled Al's limp body up from the warm nest of bodies and wrapped him tightly in a rough blue military blanket, he found it somewhere in his atheistic soul to mutter soft words of gratitude.

………………………………………..

Sam came awake slowly, piecemeal, the unfolding of consciousness almost orgasmic in its fluid relentlessness. His even breath became choppy, and he began to shiver, inexplicable tears welling up in slowly opening eyes. Finger's brushed dewy eyes, and then a hand smoothed his brow. Sam blinked the crystalline lenses away and found himself looking up into the concerned face of Lt. Jean Havoc.

He tried to speak but his lips were bone dry and the insides of his throat were clinging together. Havoc helped him sit up and eased a glass of water to his mouth. Sam drank thirstily, mind fuzzy and still heartsore from something he could not remember. Water spilled down his chin in his haste, and then he coughed. Havoc pulled back the glass and handed him a rough linen handkerchief.

"Better?" Sam's fellow sniper asked quietly.

Sam nodded weakly, dabbing his chin and throat. "What…" he croaked.

"I was hoping you could tell me. What happened up there, Lt. Jansen?" There was a note of yearning overlying the clipped tones of the older man's voice.

Sam blinked in a moment of bewilderment, and turned his head slowly. He was in his own tent, and Ed lay asleep in the cot next to his, as was usual. The smaller man's golden froth of hair spilled over the cot's sides, and trailed in the faintly dusty canvas mat below. Something seemed off, and Sam shook his head. Then his ever watchful eyes zeroed in on the hand that lay on the breast of the still sleeping alchemist.

_And metal became flesh._

With those curiously comprehensible words whispering in his mind, his memory of the night before engulfed his mind line a tsunami and with an inarticulate cry, he leapt out of his cot and staggered over to the others. Fingers gently brushed over that warm and giving hand, which before had been cold and unyielding metal.

Havoc just watched, and said nothing.

"He's not dead," Sam began, his voice coarse and weak, but strengthening slowly. "He's still alive. There was so much blood… so much blood." Sam blinked grateful tears away. He looked sharply up at the other man. "Where's Al?"

"He's in his tent with Gen. Mustang, of course," Havoc said curtly, strangely resentful to hear this total stranger refer to Soul with such careless familiarity. "He won't wake either."

Sam looked back down at Ed. "Won't wake either?" He echoed, fingers stroking that beautiful face, brushing a few strands of gold away. "He will. I know he will. They both will. Give them time."

Havoc watched, stubbornly silent. He was screaming inside to demand answers, to know what happened up there, and what Jansen meant by so much blood.

Sam straightened slowly, twitching a wrinkle in the blanket over Ed into place. "They should be together, you know. They were, there at the end, and they were glad."

Havoc's cold demeanor crumbled. "Please, tell me. _What happened? _Together at the end? What do you mean?" At Sam's gently and strangely wise smile, tears flooded Havoc's eyes. "You mean…." His chest ached from his divided heart. Of course, he'd always known that no matter what had happened or would happen, Alphonse Elric would never be for him, and that hurt. But if Ed and Al had finally come together… then the healing could begin. For all of them.

"Yes," Sam answered simply, and stepped away from Ed's cot. He felt something foreign against the palm of one hand, and then the other. Wiping them on his pants, he glanced idly at them, then froze, staring downward, gray eyes dilating in shock. There, burned into his palms in red indelible lines, were two symbols. One was as familiar to him as his own family crest, the other completely alien.

Havoc took a step forward. "Yes," he said softly. "What happened to you up there? To them? What does it all mean?"

Havoc's words jarred Sam from his shock, and he shook his head. Then he was striding out of the tent, uncaring of the fact he was wearing nothing but general issue military pajamas. He brushed past the two guards by the tent flap, and walked in an unerring line for the General's opulent tent. When the guards would have stopped him, Havoc waved them away impassively, and simply followed the younger man.

Sam marched straight up to the two guard by Mustang's tent flap. "Tell Mustang I want to see Al." He said unceremoniously to them.

One of the guards looked at him in disdain. "That's General Mustang to you, Lieutenant."

Sam made a movement of impatience.

"Get the General," Havoc growled softly behind him. "Trust me, Roy will want to see him."

The guard sniffed, but obeyed. A moment later Mustang exploded from the tent like a wild cat. For a moment Sam, Havoc, and both guards thought the general would lunge for the sniper's throat, but Mustang visibly calmed himself.

"Report, Lt. Jansen," he merely snapped instead.

"They should be together," Sam said inscrutably. "Why are they apart?"

Mustang's face ran through a quick gamut of emotions to quickly to discern. "Like I'd put them together ever again. Especially after what happened last night. I said report."

Sam shook his head, feeling strangely disconnected to the man he knew himself to be; or rather, the man he used to be. He should be snapping to attention with a crisp salute and spilling his guts. But he felt no inclination to do either, and so didn't.

"I have nothing to say. I can't even begin to understand what happened. All I know is they should be together. You're wrong to keep them apart. Wrong and selfish. He'll never love you like you want him to."

Mustang's face turned a furious shade of red. "I don't know what you're talking about." He glanced around, then with a shrug, led Sam into the tent. Havoc followed silently, not to be denied.

Once in the relative privacy of one of the canvas partitions, hiding the sleeping quarters from all eyes, Mustang turned rigidly to Sam. "Report. I don't care if you don't understand what happened up there. Tell me what you know."

Sam watched the irate man from under half lowered lashes, wondering where all his loyalty to the State had gone, his obedience to the same as well. Giving the tiniest of shrugs, he began to speak in a low but intense voice. He began from his and Ed's discussion in their tent while under house arrest so long before, with their harebrained scheme to bring the two brothers together, all the way up to his losing consciousness up on the peak towering unseen over them. He left nothing out, and spoke in crisp, clear tones.

His audience alternately paled and flushed as the tale unfolded. Both older men looked sick with Sam's graphic but brief descriptions of the boys' injuries.

Unbeknownst to any of them, in two separate tents, two related pairs of eyes flashed open, staring up at two different canvas tentings overhead, two pairs of hands searching bedsheets for something that should be there but was missing.

There was a suffocating silence that followed Sam's tale. Mustang stood there, fists clenched at his sides. Havoc stared at the ground, lost in thought.

"They should be together, sir," Sam finally ventured in the deepening silence, a brief flicker of his former military subservience. "Put them together. They belong to together."

Mustang's eyes snapped furiously. "Never. Fullmetal's almost killed Alphonse over and over again. This is just one more instance of Edward's destructive power over his brother. I will not allow it to happen ever again."

"Did you listen to a word I've said?" Sam's voice raised in frustration. "It's not up to you in any event. He'll never love you, I tell you. Never. You are wrong to keep him only for yourself when it will only destroy him. It will destroy them both. You once loved Ed like a son… I've heard the tales. Can you really condemn him to destruction because of your own blind jealousy? And Al? Do you really think you have the right to decide such a thing for him? Do you really want to continue the cycle of self-destruction they both have been following for the last three years? Can you live with that?"

Mustang fell silent under the conflicting emotions within his heart. He knew, deep down inside that everything Sam said was true, but he was so hideously afraid. Al had been so damaged by his brother's prideful ignorance of his own heart. Al had come so close to dying three years ago by his own hand. And the emotionless creature he soon became had chilled Mustang's soul. Watching the cold remorseless killing machine that rose from the ashes of Alphonse Elric's flirtation with death made him weep tears of blood. And Ed! He'd suffered in his own way as horrendously as his younger brother had. But Ed's pride and impulsive nature had led both boys to this point; had led both boys into untold danger again and again. Was he willing to turn aside and let said nature rule once more?

"They belong together," Sam's voice was somehow strangely compelling in the older man's ears. Eyes misted as he remembered a cheeky, red coated boy in his office, a hulking shadow behind him. Later, two golden heads of different hues tilted closely together, eyes dancing with mirth as they shared some unknown secret.

"You have the power in your hands, sir," Sam went on softly, his gray eyes brilliant with conviction, "to put together what was torn apart. To mend what was broken. To heal what was dying. And you have the power to destroy it all."

Mustang shook off the soft haze of memory that Sam's voice was weaving around him. "You have changed, Lt. Jansen. What happened to you up there?" Mustang's hands shot out quick as a striking snake and seized both of Sam's, turning the palms up. "Such alchemic storms always change those involved. How have you changed? And how did these marks come to appear on _your _hands?" Mustang was shaking. "On them, I would understand… but you? Why?"

"I don't know," Sam said simply, looking up at the taller man, hands loose in the other's, unresisting. "I don't even know what they mean, so how can I know?"

Mustang's fingers tightened a moment, then relaxed. "This one," he said softly, briefly raising Sam's left hand, "Is a flamel. I know you've seen it before. It's blazoned across the backs of all Ed's coat. To me, indeed many, this symbol means Ed, though it began very differently a long time ago." Then he did the same to Sam's right. "This is a blood seal; Alphonse Elric's to be precise. It was etched in Fullmetal's own blood inside his armor. The seal Edward used to bend fate to his will and keep his brother at his side."

He stared silently at Sam's hands before slowly releasing them. "Why do you hold them in the palms of your hands?" He whispered, unsure if he meant simply the symbols, or the boys in question themselves. "And what are you to them?"

Sam thought a moment, every second of last night flowing through his mind. "I'm… the bridge. I span the distance between them. They have met, over me. After so many pain filled years, they have finally come back together. Don't let it be in vain."

Mustang looked to the side, his eyes hard. "They will be changed as well. They always are. And you will be to, more than you know. Once more the fire of alchemy has burned their souls. How many more times must it happen? And Edward… god knows I still care, despite everything. But look what has happened. He runs forward without a thought to what will happen. I've seen him do it time and again."

"And you have no regrets yourself? You don't look back on your own life and regret things that you should have done differently?" Sam ducked his head slightly to catch the other man's eyes.

Mustang's eyes misted once more and he smiled ruefully. "How can one night make such a drastic change?" His eyes cleared and he stared at the young man before him with a steely gaze. "But that means nothing. I cannot…"

"Roy." Havoc's whisper, when both men had completely forgotten his presence, jerked them back to reality. The blond man was staring towards the depths of the tent even as a rustle alerted them to the fact they were no longer alone.

Al stood there a moment, watching them with remote eyes. Like Sam, he too wore pajamas. But instead of the coarse general issue, his were made of silk. As the three men stared at him in shock, Al began to move once more. He looked as if he was going to walk past them and leave the tent, and all three were too frozen to react, but then he stopped.

"Thank you," he said softly, a smile gracing his pink lips. One came up and lightly touched the side of Sam's face in a lingering caress. "Thank you."

Then the hand dropped away, and Al left the tent.

For a moment longer, Mustang was rooted to the spot. Al had _touched _Sam. When he touched no one save to kill, and allowed no one to touch him. And he _smiled_. Alphonse Elric had not smiled since the day his brother left him broken and alone in a little cottage three years ago.

Then all three men scrambled to follow in various stages of amazement.

Outside the tent, industry had stopped in its tracks. Everyone in the camp knew who Al was. They stopped in their labors to watch him walk unhesitatingly away from what had been his sanctuary for so long, save for a few spectacular forays out.

Across the commons, Ed appeared, in pajamas identical to Sam's. There was a moment's hesitation as the two brothers beheld each other across the hard packed dirt separating them. Then they gravitated towards each other a little more quickly, like filings towards a magnet. They met in the center, and Al sighed softly, but in the silence it was clearly heard.

"Niisan…" He seized a handful of Ed's loose hair, and drug him into his arms, burying his face in bright gold tendrils.

"Al…' Ed responded, arms coming around his brother, both hands fisting tightly in the back of the taller boy's top. "I love you, Al. I'm so sorry. Please…" Ed was crying.

"Shhh, Niisan," Al was saying so tenderly, nosing his brother's hair. "It's okay. Everything's all right now." Tears sparkled on his lashes as well. "You're here…"

Ed rose up on his toes, face nudging his brother. Without a care that several pairs of widened eyes were watching them. "Yes, I'm here. With you. Where I belong." His mouth sought his brother's and found it. With the softest of kisses, Ed smiled tearfully. "With you. God, Al… forgive me."

"There's nothing to forgive, Niisan." Al helplessly responded to the cluster of kisses his brother bathed his lips and face with.

Ed's hand found its way into Al's honey blond hair, fisting there as tightly as Al's was still in his. "I love you. I always did. I always will. I've been such a fool. Al…"

The small kisses became one, blurring words, then silencing them completely as the two brothers indulged themselves once more in a passionate, soul searching one. One of Ed's knees slid between Al's slowly, and he moaned into his brother's mouth. Al responded by holding his brother more tightly, dragging him a little higher into his arms, one hand falling to press against the small of Ed's back firmly.

The onlookers' shocked eyes were now combined with fiery blushes. There was something so beautiful yet carnal between the two brothers, they couldn't tear their eyes away.

Sam frowned. It was beautiful, and he could have happily sighed and watched raptly, but this was an intensely private moment, and the two boys were so enraptured with each other they had forgotten the world, even if the world hadn't forgotten them. Without even thinking about it, his hands brushed together, and he dropped to one knee to touch the ground.

Vines shot from the ground at the two lovers' feet, entwining with each other until neither of them could be seen, leaves curling and unfurling as they created a small pocket of private grove, away from prying eyes. There was a soft chorus of disappointment, then the soldiers shook themselves, as if waking from a deep sleep, and began to go about their business, every once in a while casting glances at the thicket that had so suddenly appeared in their midst.

Mustang jerked, eyes unwillingly jerked from the kiss before him, at the flash of light in the periphery of his vision and saw Sam standing slowly, a satisfied smile on the younger man's face. He suddenly looked more closely at the young lieutenant, realizing there was more to him than met the eye, even without his sudden alchemic ability. Yes, this young man would bear close scrutiny indeed.

**AN: **Whew… That came out unexpectedly long. Next chapter, the long awaited lemon. I promise.


	14. Chapter 14

Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 14

Al hadn't felt this breathless since the day he was given his body back. He couldn't think. Every nerve ending in his body pulsed with life and sensation. He stumbled backwards, the slightly mossy bole of an enormous vine keeping him from falling backwards altogether. So befuddled was he by his brother's kisses that he didn't even begin to wonder where the hell this secluded little grove had come from. To be perfectly frank, he wouldn't have cared at the moment if he had. 

As for Ed, the briefest of smiles lit his face as he trailed his lips down the smooth curve of Al's cheek. _Good old Sam. _But that was all he could spare for his friend. Right now he had something very important to do. His right hand slid slowly down his brother's shoulder. He should have only felt a numbness, metal cool against flesh, but glorious sensation screamed from his fingertips straight into his brain. He felt muted regret that such a marvelous weapon was gone forever, but he couldn't bring himself to really care. To touch Al with both hands, tactile and sensitive, was almost overwhelming. Al was so silken. So warm, and velvety over steely muscle… so _alive!_

"I love you," he whispered against the satiny warmth of Al's neck. "I love you, Al, so much." He pressed his brother more firmly into the slick surface of the vine, one knee sliding gently between Al's spreading legs.

"Niisan," Al moaned, overwhelmed by sensation. For three long and dreary years he'd only allowed the briefest of contact between himself and another living being, and then usually only to kill. He'd denied himself everything that could even be slightly pleasant; no touch, innocent or otherwise, against flesh, cloth, or the silken fur of a beloved kitten. Three long years of self imposed exile amidst the crowd of military. Now, every nerve ending in his body was exploding with feeling. The damp heat of his brother's lips sliding slowly from mouth to throat, sucking firmly, strong arms tightly around him, fingers clenched in his hair and slithering down his side to firmly grip a hard buttock, the muscled thigh pressing insistently between his legs, grazing a creation he'd not allowed in years. Al was hard. Achingly so. It had been so very long, and this was Ed! His brother, the love of his life, the center of his universe, no matter how he seemed to distance himself. And it was too much.

_Niisan!_

Al gasped, mewled, and then threw his head back with a hoarse shout as he was blinded by pleasure, shuddering violently in his brother's arms. And then he collapsed against the hard body against his own.

Ed gave a soft chuckle to feel the jerk and heat dampening both their pants from Al's unexpected release, gripped his brother's rear more tightly and lifted him more firmly against his own body. "Ah, sweetheart, you don't get out of it that easily," he murmured, easing Al gently backwards. The vine shivered, dipped obediently, cradling the younger Elric's body more snugly. 

All Al could see was the blur of green and gold surrounding them, tears trickling from his eyes to moisten his cheeks, arms outflung and upheld by curling tendrils of leaves, legs falling apart to rest against the gleaming bark beneath his body. He wept softly to feel Ed's body lightly atop his own, warm lips caressing mouth and cheek and throat, his brother's hands easing so lovingly below his clothes, soft snick of button and snap, cool air caressing slowly exposed flesh. Words of love and tenderness assaulted his ears with aching sweetness. Promises, apologies, avowals flowed over his heated flesh in whispering gusts. And a single word escaped his own lips, filled with burgeoning hope.

Ed smiled, hovering over his brother, worshiping that hard, yet satiny body, once pristine, but now as crisscrossed by faint scars as was his own. He refused to let remorse sidetrack him; later was soon enough to grieve for the soft, velvety curvaceous youth Al had been three years ago. Now was the time to learn and adore the battle hardened body that he now held, and would never let go again. And then that soft cry against his hair.

"Koi…"

And then Ed too began to weep softly, to hear that endearment, sense the vulnerability beneath him, knowing a fearful and lonely heart was opening to him slowly, shyly, like the bud of a flower. He felt arms slipping around his sides, calloused hands sinking into his loose hair and clutching the back of his nightshirt, sleek legs lifting to wrap around his, toes nudging the backs of his thigh.

His lips moved lower, feeling wetness moistening his belly as he found one pink and tender nipple, mouth lipping, tongue flickering, and a soft gentle bite.

Al gasped, head lifted, fingers tightening, toes curling into warm cotton. His hips lifted, excitement stirring once more between his legs. "Niisan… god, Niisan…" He moaned helplessly, held enthralled by his brother's sleepy and tender passion. Instinctively, his hand left his brother's hair to tug ineffectually on the offending garments separating him from his beloved's warm flesh.

And it was Al's turn to find the closures of his brother's clothes, and hear the soft whisper of them sliding free and away. Calloused fingertips ran across velvet over iron, exquisitely aware of flesh which had once been steel, ecstatically knowing that this was Niisan, brother, lover, and friend.

Drugging kisses were exchanged; wet and deep, and the caresses were slow and languid and sensual. Heat stirred between them, rose in a column of fire. Skin to skin, lip to lip, both of them lost in a haze of blissful and sweet sensation.

Breath shuddering in his throat, Ed leaned up for a moment, and watched himself slide across his little brother's body, watched two swords meet in passion instead of war, understanding that he'd been given a great gift; the miracle of having his brother, his Al where he should have been all along. At his side, and in his arms. He lifted himself, feeling an inexplicable wetness rising inside himself, even as fingers touched and stroked, tickled and probed and discovered that Al was just as moist, just as ready as he was. But he didn't linger on the oddity of it all; they were both, after all, men. But nothing mattered right now except Al, and his brother's heat and desire, burning along side his own.

But as he poised himself to slide down on an unbearably hard spike, he paused and saw the hunger, the hesitant yearning in his brother's eyes. Despite the night just past, the almost holy exchange of hearts, there was still a tiny kernel of doubt in Al. A terrible questioning that all this was too good to be true, and must either be a beautiful dream, or the horrible reality of Ed simply giving of himself to please and nothing more.

Ed smiled softly. No, soon Al would know completely that they belonged together.

He took his brother's strong hand, and wrapped it around his aching cock. "Feel that, Al?" He whispered huskily against his lover's lips. "Can you feel how much I want you?"

"N…Niisan…" Al moaned, feeling the pulse of his brother's heartbeat, his brother's desire in his hand. He stroked him lovingly. "Yes… oh god, yes." 

Ed whimpered at the sensation screaming up from his groin, and could barely think. "Al… please… I need you. God, I love you so much." And he did. He burned for his brother's touch, his brother's kisses, his brother's ardent desire and love. He wasn't sure he could wait much longer before he took what he needed; to give himself to the brother that had loved him so long and so innocently for so long.

Al gave a soft laugh, the doubt and fear vanishing from his mind. He shifted, taking Ed with him and it was Ed's turn to feel the smooth and glossy bark of the vine at his back before he began to feel too much to think anymore.

Al suddenly became deliciously and gently aggressive; his kisses, his caresses, his exploration of his brother's body, his brother's senses.

They moved together, completely harmonized in their growing desire and passion for one another. Al moved down slightly as Ed shifted up, and suddenly they were there together. Al gasped and moaned, feeling tight heat against his leaking tip. Ed groaned, laughed huskily, and thrust down upon his brother's erection. There was the briefest moment of resistance, and they were one, finally.

Al threw his head back, beautiful bronze eyes half closing in sheer pleasure as he was swallowed to the hilt in his brother's body. It was blindingly hot and wet and tight, and his body jerked at the sensations coursing through him. Ed's face was flushed below his, mouth open to pant in pleasure as he squirmed to deepen that thrust, to become closer still to his heart's true love.

"Al… please…" he gasped, unable to endure the frozen moment of unity a minute longer. He needed heat and friction and more pleasure. This was Al! At last, and after so many terrible misunderstandings and misjudgements, he finally was where he had wanted to be all along. Together, one with his brother. To hell with sin, to hell with propriety, to hell with society and it's expectations and demands. None of them understood what lay between them. And now, finally, and at long last, he did.

Sobbing, he arched up, demanding more, and Al was there to give it to him. The first thrust was hot, mindbendingly deep and shockingly pleasurable. There had been not even a hint of pain when Ed received his brother's cock. Not even a twinge. Truly, they had been made and meant for each other all along, no matter what accident of birth made them brothers and male. It had taken the gate to finally cast aside the inhibitions, doubts and fear. And together, they flew.

There was no dominance, no submission, save that of their hearts to each other. There was only give and take, take and give, on both their parts. Bodies shuddered and writhed, hands pawed and gripped and caressed, mouths licked and kissed and bit and sucked, and neither one of them was sure where one ended and the other began.

At a particularly intense thrust, Ed bit his brother's shoulder firmly. It had to be Al's shoulder, it couldn't possibly have been his own, and yet, he felt the bite, clear to his toes. And Al, he thrust, he delved, he retreated and drove home anew, and felt each and every penetration as if it were his own.

Leaves rustled, birds began to chirp and warble and sing, flashing wings and flirting tails as they darted amongst the vines and branches, a cacophonic back drop to the gasps and moans, pants and cries and finally screams of pleasure the two brothers were helpless to hold back.

Ed arched, so close! He pulled Al closer, not even giving a thought to the sudden appearance of the birds, and bit Al's throat softly. "More… more..." he panted. His hot and aching organ was sandwiched between their bellies being rubbed relentlessly but it was still not enough. "More…"

'N… Niisan…" Al gasped, and then bit back a shriek when Ed's hips jerked up, and deepened the ensuing thrust. "Yes… god yes…" 

It was suddenly harder, wetter, even more passionate. The slap of flesh against flesh mingled like a melody with the birdsong and rustling wind. The escalating cries were like sweet lyrics to beautiful music. And when Ed threw back his head, screaming in pleasure, penis jerking between them, clenching and writing in unimaginable ecstasy, followed by the lower, bell like tones of his little brothers agonized cry of completion, it was the coda to the perfect love song.

The moment of madness passed, and they were still together, still united, body heart and soul. They lay panting in each other's arms, sweaty, spent, and sticky, and took a moment to recover their senses.

"God, Al," Ed moaned softly, so softly against his brother's damp and silken neck. "I love you so much. So fucking much…" And he was crying blessed relief. The pain, it was over. The heartache was gone. They were together. They were lovers; they were one. And no one, and nothing was going to tear that asunder.

"I love you." Al's response was low, heartfelt, and just as sincere and determined. 

They were one.


	15. Chapter 15

Phoenix Rising

Phoenix Rising

Chapter 15

Sam stood there, thoughtfully regarding the small grove of trees he'd called into existence so unexpectedly. He hadn't even thought about it when he'd done it, but now took the time to marvel. He'd tried alchemy, long ago, and found that he was completely incapable of manipulating it. Thus, he'd gone into the military as a sharpshooter, something he did have a talent for. And yet, he'd used it now, without a second thought, as if born to it.

However, he didn't think about it long, as the image of the gate, black as the darkest night sprang back up in his memory. Covered with writhing figures so entwined one couldn't tell where one left off and the others began. One minute Sam had been standing on the blood soaked and watching his best friend die with his brother, the next, he was in some void, and this giant monstrosity slammed down, utterly silent, yet psychically loud. Stunned, his mind scrambled violently as the doors began to creak open slowly.

He'd been pulled in unceremoniously, black curling tendrils ending in pawing hands, and he'd been terrified like never before. A leering vague form had laughed with horrific glee before him, but a hand, silver and hard, and winking like quicksilver had reached out and pulled him back.

Ed!

And Al… he found himself sandwiched between them as some sort of argument, unheard but not unsensed, commenced between the Elrics and the creature. Bewildered and more than a little frightened, Sam had welded himself to the brothers, and finally the creature bowed with a sour expression, and backed away.

He was suddenly caught up in some sort of maelstrom, images and sounds and bizarre flashes of light and diagrams flooded his mind, and he felt as if he was

Being pulled apart in all directions. He was overwhelmed, over stimulated, over everthinged, and finally gave up the struggle and let himself be pushed and pulled around like an eddying leaf in a whirlpool. The noise and lights and pressure grew and grew until he thought he would explode.

Then, between one heart beat and the next, he found himself waking up to Havoc's face.

Remembering all this now, it was just as confusing, just as befuddling as when it happened, and Sam decided to ponder this another time. Preferably when the Elrics were available to help him sort everything out. It was more than obvious that both brothers were familiar with that chaotic and hellish place.

He looked up to find himself being closely scrutinized by General Mustang. Almost wistfully, he realized anew how fundamentally he'd been changed, and not just by this inexplicable and skilled use of alchemy.

He'd lived and breathed for the State, proud of it, and had been ready to die for the state. But no more. Now he lived and breathed and was ready to die to protect the two young men inside his little impromptu grove. Being so closely watched by a famous alchemist and high ranking officer didn't faze him one little bit. The only people who mattered at all to him were the Elric brothers.

Speaking of which… That was another thing. As soon as he thought of the brothers, he was flooded with heat and desire, passion and overwhelming love. Faint sensations of kisses, caresses, and a sudden unexpected orgasm ghosted over his body and mind and soul, leaving him shivering and panting. He realized with a shock that by simply bringing the brothers to mind, he could feel what they felt. Mind boggling.

Also very distracting. With difficulty, he pulled his thoughts away from his charges, and swallowed thickly, finding the phantasmagoric pleasure enticing and entrancing. Were he not in the presence of another, he would have turned inwards, and allowed himself to feel the ecstasy of the Elrics, knowing that they wouldn't have minded at all.

Mustang continued to watch, to listen, and began to slowly understand. Especially when he heard a muffled cry of pleasure from Al, and watched Sam shudder with unfocused eyes. This was so fascinating that Mustang wasn't overwhelmed by jealousy and pain that someone else was pleasuring his Alphonse.

"You feel their pleasure, don't you?" He said softly, simply.

Sam looked at him sharply.

"Don't deny it. You are connected to them now, in some strange fashion. You can feel what they feel, do what they do. You have seen the Gate, haven't you?"

It was a stupid question, Mustang realized. Of course Sam had seen the gate. He'd been right there when the array went off. Right with the Elric brothers as they skated the edge of disaster once again. Sam had been as inexplicably changed by his proximity to such a powerful and forbidden array as the Elrics had been, over and over again.

At Sam's questioning brow, the general nodded. "Yes, I know about the Gate. Or, rather, I've heard of it. From both Fullmetal and Soul."

"Ah," Sam said distantly, the Elrics' pleasure still tugging on his senses since Mustang had mentioned them and made him think about them even more.

Mustang saw this, and thankfully, the general's tent was only a few steps away. Taking the younger man's elbow firmly, he steered the distracted Sam into seclusion. He briskly but not ungently pushed the boy into a chair.

There was a long moment of silence, as Sam tried to sever the connection between the lovers and himself.

"They're making love right now, aren't they," Mustang asked resentfully. He'd done so much for Al, loved him so much, and been so willing to do anything for the boy, but he'd never, ever had even the slightest chance. He'd learned that relatively quickly after assuming care for the stricken boy, but it still stung nevertheless.

Sam looked away helplessly, feeling the older man's pain and frustration, laced through with possessive anger.

"He will never be yours, General." Sam said softly with a depreciating shrug. "I am sorry, but there you are."

"I know," Mustang retorted rather sharply. "But you can be his; his and Ed's both, can't you." God, it was all so unfair, the older man felt the uncharacteristic urge to just scream and bellow with frustration. After all he'd done, for both of them, and yet they took someone else to their bosom.

Mustang hadn't a clue whatsoever about what went on at the Gate, and was pretty sure any explanation would be too confusing to comprehend without having been there himself. However, both Elric boys had been, more than once, and apparently were now able to navigate that strange place with ease. If Sam had some psychic connection with them, he was sure the Elrics knew and approved of it. He felt very bitter.

"I… I don't know," Sam muttered self consciously. He really wished Mustang would stop talking about not only the Elric boys, but what those boys were currently doing. He was split between two realities right now; the one where he was talking to Mustang, and the ethereal sexual congress between Ed and Al. It was affection him greatly. His heartbeat was elevated, his temperature was rising, and he was painfully hard. Ghostly kisses and fondlings, sucks and bites were his lot, and he was a little embarrassed to be amid a love affair while not.

Shit… it was all so very confusing. And the harder he tried not to think about it, the more he did, and the more excited he became. He looked beseechingly up at Mustang, who was watching him with narrowed eyes.

"So, have they gone all the way yet?" He asked softly, dark eyes glinting with wistful curiosity.

"Will you _please _shut up about them, sir?" Sam ground out, his own eyes flashing. "It's making it harder for me to terminate the connection between us, and I don't want to… Aaaahhhhhhhh….!!"

Sam leapt up, throbbing wildly, desperately afraid he was about to come in his pants, just as Al finally claimed his brother's body. Even from the tent, they could hear Ed's warble of intense pleasure. Sam was assaulted by sudden stab of intense pleasure both in his ass and his groin. It was as if he'd been penetrated and had penetrated simultaneously. It was too much pleasure, too intense, too hot to bear.

Stumbling forward, he fell, desperately calling anything he could to muffle the sounds of pleasure from the grove. Birds arrived from everywhere, in every shape and color and form, and perched in the branches, singing madly.

Sam would have buried his face in the canvas floor had Mustang not jumped forward and caught him. Overbalanced, he fell sprawling, covering the stricken sniper's body with his own.

And felt the wild passion that resonated through the younger man's body. Sam arched desperately up, pressing himself against the hard warmth of the body above his. No longer rational, he was completely and utterly caught up in the lovemaking between the two brothers.

"H…help me…" Sam stuttered, moaning helplessly. "Make… make it stop… Please…"

"Dammit," Mustang muttered. Despite his jealousy and sorrow at what he'd always known would never be his, he felt a bit sorry for the boy below him. He wondered what it must be like for the other, to be so enraptured by the actions between other people. Sam had never asked for any of this. He'd merely had the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the right time.

There really was no choice.

"I'll help you," Mustang muttered grimly, a flush mantling his high cheeks.

Without another word, he forced open Sam's pants, caught up the pulsing length, and began to stroke it firmly.

"Ahhh… Sir…" Sam whimpered, unable to help thrusting into the warmth of the general's hand. "Oh, god… harder… sir, harder…"

Mustang's blush deepened, and his hand moved a little faster, pressed a little harder. He was getting a little excited himself now. The slim boy that was writhing and arching up into his hand was really… quite beautiful. With his inky dark hair, and riveting gray eyes, the dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose was really quite enchanting.

General Roy Mustang was no virgin, either with women, or with men. He'd dabbled on his own side of the street a few times, and had found the experiences very pleasurable. In fact, the greatest love of his life had been a man. And the second greatest love of his life, Al, was likewise male. If anything, Roy preferred men, but found it easier to pursue women in regards to his career.

So it was really no great hardship to find himself suddenly sexually involved with another man. And Sam really was quite easy on the eyes.

"Mmmm.. ahhh… sir, sir… God, that feels so good. God, more…"

And the boy's voice… thick with desire, husky with passion, and quavering with pleasure. God, he really was almost as bewitching as Alphonse. Almost…

"Roy…" he whispered softly, leaning closer, nuzzling his warm smooth lips against the boy's throat, whose head was thrown back in the throes of his excitement. "Call me Roy."

Sam convulsed, overwhelmed by the passion in his mind from the Elrics, and the pleasure he was receiving from the general's lips and hand. And just as Ed screamed in orgasm with his brother, so Sam did as well, finding his own rapture beneath the body and heated lips of Roy Mustang.

"Roy!" Sam shrieked, the sound suddenly silenced by the warm mouth, and hotter tongue of a superior officer.

Kissing the younger man deeply, he allowed his senses to run riot as his tongue delved deep into Sam's moist mouth. His hand slowed down and skillfully milked the spasming cock twitching in his hand, Sam's hot semen spilling down fingers and wrist, and spotting the immaculate cuff of Mustang's uniform.

Sam held his tortured arch for a moment, then collapsed, the psychic link between himself and the other two young men abruptly severed by the intensity of his own climax.

Panting, he lay where he was sprawled, and stared in disbelief to see General Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, smile crookedly at him as he brought his fingers to his own mouth, and stared intently into the younger man's eyes as he slowly licked Sam's essence from his hand.

"Hello, Sam," he drawled softly, eyes glinting dangerously.

So… Alphonse Elric was, as ever, beyond him. But this succulent little morsel of innocent maleness was not. And Mustang was tempted to claim him for his very own.

Very tempted indeed.


End file.
